"Holiday Weekend" my Aunt Fanny

I have so many idiotic little bits and orts to deal with before I feel remotely on top of things, I know I'm going to be working most of the weekend on checking and rechecking and re-rechecking for dropped/lost pearls. I don't even know where to start.

And I just found a truly embarrassing blunder on a number of handouts--and the most embarrassing thing is that I've been using those handouts for eons and didn't notice the error until just now. And it's the kind of error I give my students shit about: misuse of an apostrophe. I have no idea how I managed to do that in the first place (using "professor's" instead of "professors"), but then that I didn't catch it and that it proliferated like tribbles on other handouts... Color me stupid.

But I did catch it, mercifully, and in time to correct at least most of the handouts on which it appeared. That did mean recopying a bunch of stuff (waste, waste, waste, gawd, the guilt)--and I had sent some stuff off to Printing and Publications with the error on it, so I'm hoping they get the corrected originals before they embark on copying the problematic originals that went out in today's mail before I could snatch them back. If not, I'll just tell my students they can get one point extra credit if they find the error--but only if they don't tell anyone else what it is. (Our little secret.)

In other interesting adventures of the day, there was a brief--very brief--moment when it seemed I might get Nature in Lit back on my full-time schedule, even though the enrollment actually went down yesterday. Sometimes the dean will let things go to try to accommodate the last-minute surge in enrollment--but there are enough seats in other online courses for the seven who were in my class plus a bunch more. That's completely OK: after a brief moment of mild drama (well, mild for me, the Queen of Operatic Reactions), I'm quite content to teach what I have lined up.

In any event, I think I have enough stuff copied (and in teetering piles all over the radiator and my desk) that I can get through the first week and then some, so all the bits and orts at this point are things I can do at home. I've got a bunch of scrawled notes that I've gathered together to take home with me, even though I know the scrawled notes are nowhere near comprehensive in terms of all I need to do.

But we're rolling along here. I'm curious to observe my own reactions to things as the semester gets under way. (I just looked that up; I realized I didn't know if it's "way" or "weigh." Thanks to Wikipedia for a nifty little explanation:
"Underway, or under way, is a nautical term describing the state of a vessel. "Way" arises when there is sufficient water flow past the rudder of a vessel that it can be steered. A vessel is said to be underway if it meets the following criteria:

• It is not aground
• It is not at anchor
• It is not drifting
• It has not been made fast to a dock, the shore, or other stationary object."

So, there you have it. Applying the nautical metaphor to the impending start of the academic year, we find that, as of Tuesday, Sept. 4, this semester--my last as a full-time professor--will be underway. Cool beans.

Burning it up...

It turned out that Cathy didn't need me today, miraculously enough, so I've been up here in the office, slogging through the syllabus for 102 and trying to get my head together in terms of the assignment schedule, thinking ahead to essay assignments, what I'll need in terms of handouts, blah blah blah. It feels like being in a swarm of gnats at the moment: there isn't anything huge in and of itself that I need to cope with, but there are a zillion little bits that are floating around, and it's very hard to keep track of them all.

Of course, this is situation normal: I can't think of a time when I haven't felt like this except over summer or winter breaks. It will be very interesting to see how I adjust when I am not periodically, chronically plagued by mental gnats of the professorial variety. My hunch is I'll have a tendency to forget just about everything that isn't tattooed on my forehead; I'll be so happy to let go completely that it will be an adjustment to hold on to at least a few things.

I don't really believe it, you know. I really, truly do not believe that I am seriously going to go through with this and retire. I don't have any choice at this point (that wonderful word "irrevocable"), but it is just too weird to contemplate. I have occasional moments when I try to project into that future, imagine what it will be like, but generally, I go about my days as if this will be my life in perpetuity.

I hasten to remind myself that we do not know what the future may hold. I know nothing at all beyond this particular instant, and even my projections five minutes into the future could be completely wrong--and the further away in time something is, the less likely my projections are to be accurate. It's an interesting project to be involved in a continual mental retraining of my inherently negative thought patterns into something more positive. Despite all the wonderful reminders that worry is useless, I have a hard time letting go of it. Right at the moment, I don't actually feel worried, just a bit addled. And I do feel a teeny bit concerned that I have decided to put everything on hold until tomorrow, work-wise: no more work on the syllabus, no more checking through of all the little bits and orts to make sure I have them lined up. I have a feeling I'd be more likely to make mistakes at this point than catch them, so I'm opting to come at this all fresh tomorrow. I am making little notes for myself about everything I can think of to do as I think of it, but I'm betting I'll uncover more things over the next week or so. And I did find out that, if I take the reader pages to our print and copy services on Tuesday, they can have it for me relatively quickly. I'm going to make copies of the first reading just in case, but it's nice to know I can, in fact, get the readers copied quickly enough that it makes sense to use them.

And it was very nice to find that we hadn't made any howling blunders with schedules--or at least none that have yet reared their ugly heads. Lori is scrambling for a room for my class, but since it still might end up in a lab, the cap remains at 22. As of this moment, four students are enrolled, but if we get close to the wire and it doesn't have enough students to make sense, Cathy will "level" sections--take a few students out of each of the other sections at that time and move them into my section. (I wish I could see who the students are and cherry pick, but that's not how it works.) There was an interesting moment this morning when the course still wasn't up on Banner, so no one could be registering in it--which would have created an interesting predicament--and then when it was up, the cap was wrong and my name wasn't attached. All of that has now been fixed, of course, but this is the kind of silliness we're reduced to at this point in the semester.

Oh, and a side note: the Nature in Lit has lost a student, so it's even further from running than it was. I think we all see the handwriting on the wall on that one.

Whatever. It will all sort out one way or another. I'm prepared to be even more of an absent-minded professor than usual throughout the entire term. It will drive me marginally nuts to feel like those pearls from the broken strand are bouncing and clattering all over the place, but c'est la guerre. What are they going to do, fire me?

I have a phone appointment in about 20 minutes--and since I'll probably be calling on my cell, I won't be able to stay in the office (which is beautifully air-conditioned, I am grateful to say). Not sure where I'll go to get good cell service--I may end up sitting outside in my car, with the engine running to the AC can do its thing--but that's no big whoop. Life is Hunk and Dora. And I am, yours most sincerely, signing off...

The ironies abound...

Well, after all my ranting yesterday about how much I hate teaching 102, today, I reconsidered. We were asked to open a new section of 102, and it works perfectly with the rest of my schedule--and we needed someone to teach it. The fate of Nature in Lit is still unknown, but if it runs, I will now be teaching it as an adjunct. (Yes, I have lost my mind--but really, I don't think it will run; I just think we're postponing the inevitable.) So--unless I really do end up taking Nature in Lit as an adjunct--I'll be teaching two sections of 101 and one section of 102. Which may be hateful but somehow feels less gawd-awful to me today than it did yesterday.

Oddly enough, part of what tipped the scales was my realization that I could use the novel I ordered for the Native American Lit class--David Treuer's The Hiawatha--as the ultimate reading in the 102. I didn't want to teach Left Hand again (that has been so disastrous, I'm not going anywhere near it), and I didn't even really want to teach Word for World. That was a much easier read for the 102 students, but it is just a little too thin to make me feel fully happy. The Treuer novel has the advantage of being more mainstream--set in a real place, real time, with characters who are only "unusual" in being Native--and it is absolutely beautiful.

In any event, the decision has been made and the schedule is set. I just placed a book order, and tomorrow, I get to prep the class. It feels like millennia since I taught 102, but it was only a year and a half ago: spring 2017. So I can resurrect it without too much trouble from the materials I used then. I will have to do some reinventing of the wheel, I know, but ... that's OK.

One other minor oddity about the semester as it's shaping up is that the 102 doesn't have a very congenial classroom to live in. Right now, one day each week I'm in a room we call the "Ballroom"--which has the advantage of being here in Bradley Hall but has the disadvantage of being a huge, echoing space better suited for department meetings and parties as well as having one of the branches of the Writing Center in the back corner, so there will be traffic through the room almost continually. The second day each week, I'll be in a computer lab: also not optimal, as it's hard to do small groups in the space, though at least it does present the possibility for some in-class drafting of writing, if I decide to use it that way. The other advantage to being in the lab at least part of the time is it means a lower cap on the class: most 102s have up to 28 students; my section will have a maximum of 22, as that's all the lab can hold. Meanwhile, I know Cathy and Lori are going to try to find a better solution for me, but whatever. As I have been saying: sixteen weeks, and it's all over, no matter what happens. (And that applies also to my awareness that students who register at the last possible second may not be the ones I would most love to have in my class...)

I also have been consoling myself that I'm ending up without an elective because the cosmos is telling me that the SF class in the spring was so wonderful, that should be the note on which I leave that part of my career. (We'll disregard my unhappiness over the online Nature in Lit in the spring, which was at best a mixed bag.)

But all that's in the future (or the past). Today is also mostly in the past, but to give a quick run-down of how the day went: we suddenly had two classes bounce back to us to staff, in addition to the classes we hadn't quite figured out yesterday and the two new courses that were added (the 102 I took and a new section of 001). Two FT faculty had been holding on to comp sections while they waited to see if an interdisciplinary course filled enough to run--and in both cases, they got lucky, so their comp sections came back to us. But in part because some of our FT faculty are so wonderfully willing to change things at the last minute and in part because we hired three new adjuncts over the past few days, everything got covered.

One of those new adjuncts was a woman we hired after interviewing her today. We're a little apprehensive about her: she has a lot going for her, but she may be too timid for our students--and her approach may pole-vault over some things that our students need. But we'll be observing all the new adjuncts over the semester, and if she's out of her depth, we don't have to hire her again. In fact, if any of them are out of their depth, we don't have to hire them again.

And tomorrow, adjuncts start signing contracts--and then we find out whether we made any howling blunders (assigning a course to two faculty members--or not assigning anyone at all to teach something). Tomorrow, I start prepping my 102. Normally, I'd have put together a photocopied reader for them, but the print/copy service on campus can't turn anything around that fast--and I still don't know how many students I'll have. (There is a bit of a delay for the newly opened course to show up for students to select.) So, I'll be pulling materials together but holding on to them until at least Friday before I do any photocopying (unless the course fills before then, which is, I suppose, possible). Whatever. I just can't get too bent out of shape about any of it right now--which is great. I don't like being bent out of shape, so the more sanguine my approach to everything, the happier I will be.

Refusing to bow to the (almost) inevitable

There is still time for a miracle--but that's what it would take. Four more students need to sign up for Nature in Lit in order for it to run. Since last week, no one has signed up: not a single person.

I just spent time in the copy room copying syllabi and first week handouts for two sections of 101. I didn't want to give up hope to the extent that I would copy them for a third.

But most of today's amusement was about getting adjuncts to cover four classes for which we had no instructor: other adjuncts had been given the sections but declined them--and they were mostly courses that not just anyone can teach. We ended up doing emergency calls to hire new adjuncts. Cathy and I interviewed one person this afternoon--and signed him up on the spot. Tomorrow we'll interview another, and we'll be praying that she seems awake and intelligent--and that she can take the class we have to offer. One class we got covered by a full-time faculty member who was willing to take a second class as an adjunct. One is still hanging in limbo. We've called an adjunct who has worked for us in the past to beg her to take it; we're waiting to hear back. If she doesn't take it, Cathy may have to fall on her sword and teach it herself.

I felt a little bad--but only a little--at my response when Cathy asked me if I was sure I wouldn't want it instead of a third 101. I said, "I hate 102. I hate 102, and I hate mornings. That's too early for me. I'd hate it." ("Oh," she said. "OK. That's clear.") But I really would hate it. I don't mind so much when students are complete idiots about the news articles and op-ed pieces they read (never mind when they read my instructions), but when they are truculent and recalcitrant (which terms are not quite synonymous) about literature, it drives me wild. I also--foolish me--expect them to have actually learned something in 101, and I go screaming around the bend when they haven't. Many of them haven't even learned how to behave like college students, which is the very least I expect after they've had a semester (and possibly more) of English classes at the college level.

So, no: I don't want to teach 102. And it sets my teeth on edge to teach three sections of 101--but at least I don't have much in the way of expectations for 101 students.

I could also pitch a snit about the fact that I've had to fiddle with my Advisement hours to accommodate that third 101--and I did finally say, "These hours will work for me no matter what happens to my schedule," not only for the peace of mind of the Advisement folks but so I could have my syllabi ready to roll with the correct office and seminar hours in place. But I don't like it: I have to do my Advisement hours in three 2-hour chunks, instead of two 3-hour chunks--and I have to get in earlier than I want on Tuesdays and stay later than I want on Wednesdays. Not that I wouldn't be here late in any event; very quickly I will need all my afternoons to stay on top of marking student assignments.

I've been saying that, if I could, I'd change my retirement date from Dec. 31 to Aug. 31--as in this coming Friday. I'd teach my two 101s as an adjunct and call it a career. But I can't, and really, if the opportunity presented itself, I probably wouldn't go for it; I'm freaked enough about the drastic reduction in my salary that will occur in January, so I doubt I'd be willing to stop earning that salary four months earlier. But I am seriously fed to the gills with the insanity at this place--and with feeling abused and devalued by the administration.

As evidence of the insanity of the administration, I offer exhibit Z-prime: today, without getting Cathy's approval, they opened a section of 001 and a section of 102. Remember that bit about us having to drag in strangers off the street (well, not quite, but close) to staff the sections we already have? Cathy slammed her foot down, and the courses were closed again, thank God, but dear fucking God in heaven, what completely arrogant presumption. Cathy said, in essence, that she could do it if they'd give her an emergency full-time line; we have an adjunct we'd love to have teach for us on a full-time basis. (We can give a maximum of eight credits per semester to any adjunct.) The dean said, "Well, that's not going to happen" but then made a snarky remark about the depth of our adjunct pool and that she assumed we'd have enough people to cover it. What she didn't know--and couldn't be bothered to find out--is that we lost five or six high-seniority adjuncts this semester, so we have less of a pool than we've had in the past. This is not to mention the presumption that any adjunct can teach at any time, day or night, any day of the week. (We have some adjuncts who didn't get course assignments, or only got one when they wanted two, but when they are available doesn't match when we have courses, so...)

Argh, argh, argh. Bruce would have threatened to close the classes we can't staff, despite the fact that they are full of students. His favorite line was that he was tired of digging up recently deceased Ph.D.s to full the adjunct ranks. We're not in that boat, but we are taking people without vetting them as carefully as we would under better circumstances.

And there's still that 102.

Well, whatever. This too shall pass. It will be all the same in a thousand years. In four months and change, I'll be free of this madness. I may be counting days between now and December 20, but those days will, in fact, pass, and the worst that might happen is that I'll be exhausted and stressed and frazzled to a fritz for sixteen weeks. All in all, that's not bad. And I do get paid well to do it. So there's that.

I don't know. Color me grumpy. But I'll stop bitching for now and be grateful that I still have a few days before that count-down begins.

Posting late

After another day of madness with schedules (and annoying faculty making ridiculous demands as if they are entitled to what they want, never mind what reality says), Cathy and I went out for a much deserved Italian meal and glass of wine. It was a great talk--and we didn't even spend the entire time talking about NCC. That's a little slice of bliss right there.

It is, however, very late, and I do need to be winding down ASAP; I have to go back in tomorrow to run a check of everything we did (Cathy won't be in, so Lori and I will do it)--which will certainly turn up howling errors that will be a snorting pain in the ass to fix. There is one class still unassigned; I thought we had a plan in place, but that just went down the drain. And as I was starting to type all this, I realized we made some changes without informing the FT faculty whose schedules were affected.

Fuck me blind. (Funny moment: I muttered that under my breath, and Cathy thought I was offering a suggestion for how to fix something, so she said, "How would that work?" Um. Well...)

Anyway, from a purely selfish perspective, the main result of today's madness was that I lost Native American Lit--and I know that if at least four more students don't sign up for Nature in Lit by end of day Monday, Tuesday at the latest, I'm going to lose that, too.

FMB.

Well, this too shall pass. Like a kidney stone, perhaps, but it shall pass.

And tomorrow ... yadda yadda yadda. You get the picture.

Is it over yet?

Days like today, I AM SO FUCKING GLAD I'M RETIRING, I hardly know what to do with myself. In fact, I'd almost want to retire as of the 31st of this month, were that an option.

We uncovered at least three full-time faculty schedules that are in violation of contract requirements regarding ratio of FTF and online courses--requirements that are, I grant you, problematic, given the paucity of courses to assign FTF and the proliferation of courses offered online (or partially online, which "count" as online classes in those parameters). My dear Paul was one person whose schedule was problematic, but because he is a sweet and understanding human being, he was fine with the change we had to make to his schedule. Another faculty member was much less understanding, though her schedule was infinitely more problematic. And yet another we have yet to hear from about the changes, but I'm imagining some huffing and dudgeon (perhaps only middling, not high) from her as well.

And we will have to go back through and try again to find courses to hold for a few faculty whose courses may not run, as what we were holding for them we had to give to solve the problems referenced above.

On top of which, we have adjuncts who are nudging to know their assignments (though they should know better) and who are cadging for more classes....

And my own classes are still in danger. Both of the electives. I'm fortunate that the class being held for me hasn't been monkeyed with (yet), but that may yet happen.

As a result of all this pouring oil on troubled waters and fancy dancing, I am both tired and wired and so cranky I should come with a warning sign. "Do not poke the professor." "Stand back 500 feet." "Caution: high voltage." Two friends wanted to talk and be friendly and I had to resist the impulse to tear their heads off. Don't ask me how I am right now, as I am only aware of being systemically pissed off. Don't ask me when I'll be free to do something fun; I'm likely to reply, "NEVER," and slam the door (metaphorically speaking). To be honest, I don't like this in myself and am trying to learn more calm, open ways of being. In truth, I am fine, and the pissed-off state won't last long. In truth, I am in fact available to have fun in a couple of days--and I will be very happy to have something pleasant planned with a good friend. And I really don't need to spew my venom all over the place because I am momentarily rumpled by the current state of events.

So, I breathe, and blog, and breathe some more. It's all fine. These problems are insignificant, in the grand scheme of things. Life is very, very good indeed--and I will be free of these particular problems soon enough. The only thing I know for sure is that there will be problems--because there always are in life--but life will continue to be wonderful, including the problems, not despite them. Life will be different, and challenging, and rewarding, and filled with reasons to be grateful.

Ah, there. That feels much better inside my skin. I'd far rather feel happy and calm than tense and cranky. And it really is up to me how to feel about things. My choices. All are my choices. What happens to me may be beyond my control (though I think we control more than we realize simply through what we anticipate and prepare for), but how I react to what happens is entirely my responsibility. I like the inspirational video on that subject that I saw on Facebook the other day. The speaker points out that the word "responsibility" is made up of two words: response and ability. If you have the ability to do something, you can take action based on your ability in response to whatever happens. I also like Le Guin's take on the word (expressed in the wonderfully weird story "Ether, Or"): being responsible means you have to answer. Call and response, ability and choice. Maybe that's a bit too crunchy granola, but I like both ideas.

And I have a responsibility to bring more peace and happiness and calm into the world, for myself and for people around me. Breathing helps, but so does remembering that I have that ability, that I can make that answer.

I realize, writing this, that my work as a teacher is simply shifting focus--and not just in terms of the very specific training in Breath-Body-Mind but also in terms of teaching myself, and bringing a different kind of teaching into my everyday approach to life. Everything I've just written has nothing to do, really, with me as an English professor--but everything to do with me as a person who professes to care about the world more generally.

And, channeling the spirit of my other guru, Scarlett O'Hara, tomorrow is another day, and I can think about all the scheduling bullshit tomorrow, when I'm stronger. (And as God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again--but I'm not talking about hunger in the body but hunger in the mind and soul.) So, until tomorrow, my friends and faithful readers.

"Cathy: **Delegate!**"

Once again, Cathy thought she'd just do something on her own, instead of waiting until I (or someone else) could at least help her, and once again, she made a hash of things that I now get to un-do and re-do correctly. I was grateful that she called this morning to tell me not to hurry in (so I didn't--and was much later than I intended to be; I may have to rethink that morning alarm, or the morning routine), and we didn't work very long. Of course, there were interruptions and a bunch of little things we had to take care of right then (switching sections for FT faculty, that sort of thing), so we didn't get very far--just far enough to find sections to cover for classes that may not run, affecting FT schedules. Tomorrow, we start fresh--and among other things, I make sure the paperwork is all tracked as it needs to be, in addition to making sure we don't give high-seniority adjuncts classes that have low enrollment, or sections that belong to the Accelerated Learning Program (which combined 001 and 101 students), or various bits like that. We may, however, be frantically interviewing adjuncts specifically to teach 100. (Don't ask: we have so many levels of things trying to get students from the desperately inadequately prepared to marginally ready, it's ridiculous.) We have about a zillion sections of 100, all full to the brim--in fact, we're being hounded to offer more, but if we can't find instructors, giving students seats won't do much good.

For my own part, I'm disappointed that my classes didn't see an uptick in enrollment today--but not really surprised. We made sure a section of 101 is set aside for me just in case, but man, I really hope at least one of the electives runs. If both run, I'll need to do something extravagant to show my gratitude to the gods of registration.

In terms of my own stuff, I'm not going to do anything else until I know what I'm teaching: no making of photocopies, no creating of handouts and assignments, nothing. But I did clear off the piles of paper on the radiator. That task was made infinitely easier by the fact that I was throwing away huge wodges of stuff that I'd have wanted if I were going to be teaching any of the classes again, but since I'm not? Out it goes. I actually was thinking about that last night: I probably won't do it between now and December, but between January and whenever I relocate, I will need to clear out all my stuff from this office--and there's a lot to be cleared out. Much of it can be tossed (much of it could have been tossed years ago; I'm not sure why I was hanging on to a lot of it), but I do have a lot of books to pack up and various little knickknacks and doo-dads, as well as a little bit of art on the walls. Strange to contemplate. Strange to imagine what the office will feel and look like when I and all my possessions have been removed.

It's pretty early, but I have various life-maintenance things to take care of, so I'm going to go do them now, while the evening is young. I'll be back in tomorrow for more fun and frolic with scheduling. Meanwhile, I am sending my wishes to the universe: please let my last semester be a good one, whatever that may mean in terms of which courses run.

Progress of a sort

Considering the bumpy start to the day (no sleep, up very early, staggering around trying to figure out how to get students into my classes--and again, there before the big onslaught of late registrations begins), I am amazed that I actually got some work done. I'm pretty sure the T/Th 101 is set up on Banner, and I have the M/W variations of the schedule (in the syllabus, in the grade tracker, on the attendance cards) all set. I also checked--again--to see whether my memory about what we can and cannot do in terms of attendance is correct. It was, basically, but I'm glad to have made sure. (The deal there is we cannot mark a student "absent" or send the student away if he or she is physically present; the explanation was that the student might need to use attendance (or absence) from class as an alibi in a legal situation--which I don't really buy as the reason, but OK. We can, however, penalize for absences, and we can fail a student simply because that individual has missed enough classes that he or she cannot reasonably be said to have done sufficient work to complete the semester.)

I checked the numbers again, of course. (I try not to do that more than two or three times a day, but it's tempting to check much more frequently--like whenever it happens to cross my mind.) I picked up another student in the Nature in Lit, bringing that tally to nine. I still have only seven in Native American Lit. I just checked, and there are three or four other literature electives running in the same time slot, and all have low enrollment (though not quite as low as my class). The online courses seem to be filling in numeric order, as if many students are simply scrolling down to find the next available online class--and since mine is last on the list, it may fill last.

But enrollment in the electives is seriously weird. Courses that always run--American Short Story, Film in Literature--are struggling for enrollment. A few courses that sometimes struggle are doing surprisingly well. Part of me wants to grub for any elective rather than teaching two sections of comp (if Native American Lit doesn't run), but ... do I really want to teach Early American Lit (which I haven't taught since about my second or third year at NCC)? No. And there isn't anything else I'm qualified to teach that's running without an instructor. So, if Native American Lit doesn't run, I'll teach two 101s and be fine with it. If Nature in Lit also doesn't run, I'm truly fucked, as I'd have to teach three 101s. There are a few sections that would fit my schedule (apparently Cathy uncovered some hidden sections, as the last time I checked that wasn't the case), but still: that's not exactly the way I want to finish my career.

And yes, I'm still freaking out about this being my last semester. I truly don't believe it (and it turns out the medical coverage is not as splendid as I thought: if at some point in the future, full-time faculty have to pay for medical, I will too, exactly as they do), but it's now irrevocable (a word I'm beginning to hate). The odd thing is that I don't feel the freak-out on the surface at all; I'm only aware that it's going on because I am displaying symptoms of underground tremors, my self-soothing mechanisms coming online.

But I do keep reminding myself that what I experience as "freak out" can also be felt--literally--as excitement regarding a forthcoming adventure. And I remind myself that it isn't now. Now, I'm just glad to have made some progress toward semester prep and to have a sense that I'm at least moderately ready for whatever transpires. Tomorrow I'll be in the office with Cathy, and that's probably going to be the case for the balance of the week and the beginning of next. I hope we finish up early enough that I can do some clearing out of all of last semester's junk before this semester's starts piling up, and I may do some further course prep, though that's less likely. I haven't yet put together the scripts for my little instructional videos; that may be a weekend thing. As long as they're done and up before the semester starts, all will be well.

And for now, I'm going to turn off "functioning" mode and turn on "vegetating" mode. Until tomorrow.

I have no idea...

I spent some time today--despite a serious case "I don't really want to" combined with "My brain doesn't work"--fixing the glitch in the appearance of the online Nature in Lit, which was gratifying, and contemplating (again) changing one of the readings, if I can find something I want to change it to, which is proving elusive. Which is, of course, why I keep going back to, "Oh, to hell with it. The thing I picked last semester is fine."

I also checked about one of my book orders (or sent a message about it, anyway), and bounced a question to the Library staff (because of the change of book vendors on campus. they aren't sure they'll have all our books on reserve when the semester starts--but since I'm using books I've used before, I hoped those might be available anyway, and they might be, but I need to check). And I did a little noodling around with syllabi, mostly the class policies for the 101 (or 101s, as the case may be), which I cloned to the Native American Lit (operating still in hope that the bastard will run, despite the stubborn lack of upward movement in enrollment).

And I feel like I should have accomplished more but, well, given my affliction with the above referenced mental ailments, I think instead I'll be happy enough to have done something.

I begin to wonder, however, if my last semester as a full-time professor will end up being a bit of a chaotic mess, simply because I can't be arsed, as the Brits would say, to button up the way I "should." On the other hand, I may suddenly realize that a lot of the fuss and feathers I've experienced since I started this career really wasn't necessary or productive. Well, I already sort of know that, but maybe this time I'll realize how much I can let go of. We can almost always let go of more than we think we can.

Two things happened today to make even this modicum of progress possible. One, I read an article in Time that I thought would be better for the final essay in 101, so I printed it out and changed the assignment schedule. Two, I got a nap before I got to work, and that made a lot of difference. Who'd a thunk it: sleep helps.

Now, however, I'm truly stick-a-fork-in-me done. Normally today would have been a day of me being a student, but I had already canceled my fiddle lesson and I opted to bail on everything else. I think it was a good decision to stay home and quiet, but I find I have to keep reminding myself what day of the week it is (and fending off occasional stabs of anxiety about the date).

Who knows when I'll next post, but things are gearing up now, so probably relatively soon.

Done ... and not done

Well, the irrevocable step has been taken: the letter stating that I will retire as of Dec. 31, 2018, has been sent to all the relevant departments and people, and a copy left on Cathy's desk. I'm both more and less unsettled by having finally made it fully official than I expected. I don't feel hesitation about having made the decision--I've spent more than a month saying out loud that it's going to happen, that my mind was made up--and formalizing it didn't cause an anxiety attack, though I thought it might. The feeling of being somewhat unsettled is deeper than that, and harder to define. I know I will be making the adjustment gradually over the next year: first moving from teaching to not (or only teaching part time)--and adjusting to the new "salary"--and then literally moving, from NY to Montana. It feels completely unreal at the moment, in large measure because it's not immediate. I do notice that I'm not quite as wound up about semester prep as I might usually be, but I also notice that once I fully dive into it, I get as caught up as ever.

And I had intended to dive in today, since I'm here on campus. I spent a little while with one of the wonderful gurus in Distance Ed (Faculty Resources Division), much of the time trying to figure out a weird formatting thing that happened when there was some sort of upgrade to the Blackboard platform (and which is going to be a bit of snorting pain in the ass to fix) and a tiny bit of time learning how to make instructional videos--which I can either do here on campus or at home. The guru did suggest making at least a loose script before I make the videos, which is a good idea--and I do want to time myself, so I keep them short and sweet.

I also made scans of some of the new material I'm going to teach in 101, and I had intended to do more work on the online portion of the classes, construct the alternative assignment schedule for a M/W 101, in case Native American Lit doesn't run, and at long last clean up the huge piles of junk that are still teetering on my desk and the radiator from spring. None of that is going to happen today. I've had two nights in a row of highly disrupted sleep (let's blame the weather), and I, well, I just don't want to do anything else, is what it really comes down to.

I handed out fliers for both electives around Advisement--and had a minor brainstorm of how to greatly improve the effectiveness of the fliers (more prominently displaying the "attributes" (for which, read "graduation requirements") that they fulfill). And I now know where to post them where they will do the most good next week when registration is a mob scene.

So all that's good. But now, I'm going to stagger home. It's barely the middle of the afternoon, but I just can't think, or see, or stand to be anywhere other than home for a while. The next three days I will be having fun with my nephew and his friends; then I'll see them off at the airport and get serious about getting ready. I'll be working on scheduling with Cathy--which is going to be more challenging than I thought, as we've added about a zillion sections of 100 for which we do not have faculty, either full time or adjunct. So, fun and frolic await. Oh, goodie.

I could sort of do this indefinitely

I know some of what I'm doing may be wasted effort, depending on what runs and what doesn't, but I find that fussing around with the schedules (formatting mostly) and getting the grade trackers ready (I'll explain those in a minute) and translating things to PDF to be posted and so on and so on can go on for quite some time.

I made the executive decision to bail on my Friday afternoon things and instead made sure I have at least the bones of the online Nature in Lit set: all the dates have been altered (gawd I hope) and the discussion boards are attached where they should be (and last semester's responses deleted--I hope), and generally, apart from the instructional videos that I will make starting next week, I think everything is pretty much ready to go.

As is always the case, I ended up moving things around as I proofread and retyped the schedules--for both lit electives. And I decided to add a few extra credit assignments to the Native American Lit schedule; almost all the extra credit options were before the first essay is due (mostly critical material that in the past I've assigned but that I'm making optional this time around), and I decided I should give students a chance to make up some ground between the first and second essays as well. After essay two, no more extra credit is available. By that point, it's pretty much sink or swim. I get very annoyed by students who suddenly decide in the last weeks of the semester to grub for points. As one of my colleagues has been known to point out, at that juncture, the student's only real option is to get in her or his time machine, go back to the start of the semester, and do better work all the way through.

As for that "grade tracker" thing: this is one of my hyper-organized deals that I find students actually (mostly) really love. I grant that the first two pages pretty much are a blur to them (too much information), but since their grade is determined by points earned, it's a way for them to record the points they're earning as they go along, add them up, and see how they're doing. (I include information about the maximum points possible--which is always higher than needed to get a perfect A++--and what the approximate minimum is to be passing at every step along the way.) Of course, the students who need it most are the ones least likely to use it, but that's true of absolutely every aid and kind of support we offer. You can lead a student to learning, but you can't make him (or her) think.

I'm also starting to organize the heaps of paper and books on my floor around the computer--including a pile that very shortly will be carried to the recycle bin. That feels good.

Part of why I made the executive decision today that I did is that I know I won't really have any time to work on this until I'm back on campus daily, working with Cathy on scheduling. Given how few unassigned courses we have, that may not take very long--though the perpetually moving target is always fun. And I know I might have been drumming up more business for my under-enrolled courses if I'd gotten my fanny to Advisement any time in the past few weeks, but, well, I didn't. And I'm not going to before I have to be there on Thursday to learn how to do those instructional videos (and, better yet, to meet with Kristin for lunch/coffee/something).

But it's getting late, and I still have to make a dash to the grocery store before I take care of feeding the two mammals who live in this apartment. And yes, it will be good to get out of the apartment. I've completely forgotten the past few days to set a timer to get myself up and moving, and my poor, creaky body is practically frozen in "nailed to the computer" posture. So, off I go. More, well, whenever, I reckon....

Chalk it up to insomnia

When I went to sleep last night--and indeed, when I was unable to go back to sleep at 4 a.m.--I was aware that probably the most important thing for me to accomplish would be to copy the online materials for Nature in Lit from last semester to this semester so I can start making all the changes I will need to make (of which there are many, and all of which need to be done carefully and precisely). I gave up on falling back to sleep at about 6, got up, did some morning chores--and then fell asleep at about 10:30 and slept for two hours. When I woke up, that intelligent thought was completely gone; instead, I was concerned to make some needed changes to the Native American Lit assignment schedule, even though I'm less confident my work on that course will be required. (Seven students are now registered. Thirteen used to be the threshold at which a course would run but I think it's up to about fifteen now....)

The changes to the Native American Lit come because I've been doing more reading as a semi-scholar (my knowledge is woefully out of date), and I realized that there are potential problems in terms of the ethics of teaching "traditional" stories. I've been concerned about the fact of translation, which is an issue, but it turns out to be a minor one. I contacted a colleague from ASLE who knows infinitely more than I about these things, and here's what she said: "It depends on the story. What are your sources? Are they oral traditions? In most tribes, you can tell stories after the first frost. That's hard re: climate change, but roughly October. So, if you schedule them after October, and acknowledge that storytelling season starts AFTER the work of summer, then you are fulfilling an ethical requirement. I wouldn't dwell too much on the fact that they are now written, not oral, given that most stories are now put out by the persons who "own" them or are responsible for them. So if you are using the Heath anthology for example, they have done the leg work of asking the tribe."

The whole aspect of when it is appropriate to tell stories never dawned on me, nor had the need to respectfully ask the tribe whether it would be OK to share their stories. And because of the way I have the schedule constructed, it wouldn't work for me to wait until November to introduce the old stories. I'm essentially working by genre, not theme--and even if I were working on themes, I'd want to mix the old and the new--so, well, a reboot was required for at least a few classes.

Somewhere in all that sleeplessness, I decided to use some memoir and nonfiction as a start to the entire semester. (Another issue is that I want to be able to provide things in photocopy the first week or two, as it usually takes students a while to get the books and, despite my repeated stating that the books are available in the library, they won't read what is not immediately in their hands.) I made a very rapid decision today, picking a mix of older and newer stuff, but even that was a challenge. Some of the memoirs seemed too sentimentalized--although I understand why (trying to persuade a white audience that the old ways had been beautiful and worth keeping)--and at least one extract I read probably was a relatively accurate written transcription of what the author related orally but came across a bit too much as the stereotype of the "grunting redskin." Hard to find that sweet spot of engaging, pedagogically useful, and brief.

So, that was the fix for the "story" section of the syllabus, but then I thought there were probably similar problems around using "traditional" "poetry" (which would have been sung or chanted, of course, and not distinguished as a different "literary form" from the stories, just a different purpose and mode of delivery). So I scrapped that and chose a few additional poems instead.

One benefit to come out of the changes is I am now using more of the expensive textbook than I was originally. Paul makes the argument that owning books is always good, so the expense is worth it, but I don't want to try to make that case to students who probably are resistant to reading in general (and the few who love to read and love books wouldn't need to be persuaded anyway).

At any rate, I did do the work on the Native American Lit class; I even was able to adapt the first two essay topics from when I taught the class five years ago without too much difficulty, so that felt good. And I did at least submit the "course copy" in Blackboard for the Nature in Lit, so it will be ready for me to work on tomorrow. With any luck at all, I'll have something approaching a waking brain tomorrow. For now, I am simply too tired to think about another damned thing. The area around my computer here at home is a chaotic mess of printouts and books and other flotsam, but I can't even make sense of all that right now. I had hoped to last much longer than this, and if I'd slept, I probably could have lasted, but as it is? I am stick-a-fork-in-me done.

Another moderately productive day...

I thought I had done more work on the Nature in Lit handouts than was in fact the case, so although I had other plans for my time today, I've been hacking my way through that underbrush--and I think I have things cleared out relatively well.

One thing I've noticed in terms of all my syllabi: because the various fall holidays create a 16-week semester (instead of the more usual 15), I can stretch things out a bit. What that means for Nature in Lit is I can space the essay assignments out a bit more evenly; last semester, essay 2 followed very fast on the heels of essay 1, which is simply not a grand idea. I did think about adding air in other places, but what I ended up doing was moving the first essay to be due before the students read Thoreau. Although it would make sense to include Thoreau with Emerson and Whitman, I'm actually going to use "Walking" to transition to a slightly different take on "nature" and "nature writing." The topics I have for essay 2 easily accommodate what he's talking about in that essay--and I've divided it up into two weeks, hoping (probably in vain) that the students will work on reading a little more carefully.

I had also thought about ditching some readings that seemed problematic in the spring, but in a mood of defiance, I've decided to keep them. Nothing that I've assigned--nothing--should be outside the grasp of a college sophomore, though much of it will be challenging. But challenge is good (she says, knowing that she also sometimes will try to duck a challenge).

Part of me would really like to keep working, in fact: it is hitting home how much I "need" to do before the semester starts, how little I've done, and how little time there is left before the roller-coaster leaves the platform. But I have errands to run that are time sensitive (for instance, the post office closes at 5), so I'm going to call an early halt to all this. I have nothing on my calendar the next few days, thank God, so I'm hoping I can knock off as much of the prep as possible--and, as an added bonus--avoiding the worst of each day's heat.

Seems there was something else of interest I had in mind to say, but heaven only knows what it was--if indeed there was anything at all. Whatever. We all know what tomorrow is, correct? That's right! It's another day!!

Thinking positive

Today, I decided to think positively about my literature electives, so I spent a good chunk of the day putting together the assignment schedule for the Native American Lit course. In the process, I realized I could spread things out significantly (which will help the students stick with it, as they'll be much less overwhelmed by reading)--and I realized I wanted to look at a critical article that I may also want to share with the students. However, I couldn't seem to access the article. I thought, "I bet one of my colleagues can help," so I sent out an email to the department. Wham: six responses--including one from the author of the critical article (turns out one of my colleagues knows her). That was a lovely reminder of the quality of my colleagues.

I'm now sitting here, surrounded by flotsam (in the guise of printouts of various bits of things, books I've been consulting, books I've been considering)--and I am feeling somewhat poleaxed. I'm not sure if it's just that I've had my head down for enough hours that I can't quite pull myself up again or if I'm experiencing a strange back-wash of resistance to doing the work in the first place. But ... progress is being made.

I also took an unusual step and directly emailed several students (choice folks from previous semesters) to ask them whether they'd be interested in signing up for Native American Lit (which has six students in it at present). I heard back from one of them; turns out she graduated in May (which was not reflected in her degree evaluation online). The others? Well, I'm not really expecting anything from it--and I didn't contact enough of them to save the class from cancellation--but it doesn't hurt to ask. And it was a way to advocate on my own behalf without having to make a trip to campus with fliers.

And now, an enormous thunderstorm is rumbling around outside. (The power already went out briefly once; more outages may occur. Thank god for computer batteries, and surge protectors.) I'm going to take that as my sign to, well, sign off for today. I do like it when I can get thoroughly caught up in work and sort of "fall into the vortex" (as Jo March put it in Little Women). Getting out again can sometimes be a challenge, but that's a good challenge to have.

More posts to come, as we move toward the actual start of things...

A different twist on semester prep

I know I've been gone all summer, so I expect I have about 2 readers right now, but I'm posting anyway. Semester prep has been unusually challenging this year. I'm facing the usual challenges: how to change assignments around so they work better, juggling the schedule to fit with a different semester (and a couple of weird weeks early on, when we have cancellations and "Tuesday is a Monday" adjustments because of the Jewish holidays)--and in the case of Native American Lit, working out a class I haven't taught in (I just realized) five years, so a lot of my thinking has changed. On top of that, there's the possibility that Native American Lit may not run, so I have to have two different assignment schedules for 101s: if Native American Lit doesn't run, I need to have a M/W class to maintain a four-day schedule (or teach a hybrid--but it doesn't look like the hybrid is going to run and I don't want to teach one anyway), so although I hate having my comp classes on different days of the week, I have to have a schedule for a M/W section and for a T/Th section. No matter what happens with the elective, I'm putting work into a class that I won't teach, as either I won't teach the M/W 101 or I won't teach the lit course.

But the real thing is that my entire mood about semester prep has changed radically--because I have decided that I am going to take advantage of the early retirement option currently on offer, so this will be my last semester teaching full-time. I will have to relocate after retirement--I can't afford life on Long Island on my retirement income--but I won't actually make the move until next summer, so I hope to pick up adjunct classes in the spring, and/or find other ways to supplement my income until I move (some of which I hope to take with me after I move).

I am, naturally enough, I suppose, petrified about the financial side of this equation. It's going to mean a drastic reduction in my monthly income--and even though I'll be living somewhere where the standard of living is somewhat less expensive than it is here, it's not as drastic a difference as if I were moving to a small town in the Midwest, for instance. But the bigger, harder shift is the change in identity. My identity has been wrapped around my profession for at least eighteen years--and when people ask "what do you do?" I don't want to say, "Oh, I'm retired." (Cue images of wearing polyester culottes and playing golf--not that there's anything wrong with that, it just isn't me.) I've always said I wanted to retire to, not from something--and I don't have a clear, solid "to" lined up. I may be a freelance editor, or a Breath-Body-Mind teacher, or ... there are other options. But scary as this is--and I'm surprised by how scary and difficult the decision turned out to be--all the signs say it's the right thing. I said if there was an early retirement incentive, I'd take it, and the cosmos said, "OK, here you go." It would seem rather ungrateful to say, "Oh, no: that one's not good enough." And really, if I look at this right, it's a wonderful adventure coming my way, with lots and lots and lots of freedom attached--and that sounds pretty wonderful. I'm grateful for this opportunity.

It will be hard to leave my dear friends and colleagues, of course. But it won't be hard to leave NCC, and although I'll miss the bright lights among the students, I won't miss the slog of trying to get through to the resistant and truculent, the disengaged and dismissive. I could have opted to retire at the end of this month instead (which would have meant a larger cash buyout), but that seemed too abrupt. Part of me wishes I had, though: it would have been nice to go out with that SF class as the capper to my career.

But maybe this semester will be filled with surprising delights in my classes: maybe all of them will be great. That is entirely possible.

Meanwhile, because I know it's all but over, I find it hard to summon the enthusiasm to really get my hands dirty with that semester prep--even though I know my time in which to do that is diminishing rapidly (especially because the week before I head back into the scheduling fray with Cathy, one of my nephews will be here with two friends, so I'll be acting as Aunt the Tour Guide for at least part of the week). But I also know, after all this time, that I will get it done, one way or another.

I expect I will start posting a little more regularly now that the semester is drawing nigh--and as I struggle to figure things out in terms of the assignment structures and schedules. I've already reconfigured the final paper for the Nature in Lit (and have asked my wonderful librarian colleague to construct another LibGuide for it--though I feel some guilt about it, knowing it will only be used once, unless one of my colleagues can use it to teach the class after I depart). And I have decided to use a different novel in the Native American Lit class--not Ceremony, but The Hiawatha, by David Treuer (a heartbreakingly beautiful read and more contemporary, showing that Native writers are still writing after the big wave in the 1970s and 80s). But I need to re-examine a lot for that class--and now is not the time to get into it.

In any event, I will be posting as usual throughout the fall, and possibly into the spring, if I do indeed get an adjunct class or two. And then ... well, we'll say our goodbyes later. For now, hello again, and I'll post again soon.