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....