On Fitness

A theory I have held for a while now is that there is an inverse correlation between exercise and intellectual activity.  It makes sense: if you exercise a certain percent of your day, that is time when you are most assuredly not reading. I have experienced this first hand.  (No, I don't want to hear about Audiobooks.  I've tried, and the experience is still very different from reading--more different from reading, in fact, than reading paper books is from electronic books.  But that doesn't mean I'm calling people who read Audiobooks un-intellectual.) In the past, I have used this theory as a reason not to exercise.  But now, I find myself with almost a kind of exercise-regimen (which scares me a little), and I really believe my theory is still upheld.

I used to wonder how it was even possible to fit exercise into the day.  But, well, now I find myself with a lot of free time, courtesy of my former department head in my former department.  However, the fitness bug started a bit further back when, as a result of some health issues (not mine), we started to make some changes in our lifestyle.  Not that I had never tried.  It's just that things never stuck.  So starting back, well, in 2016 probably, my husband (I don't like the D.H. moniker, but I don't like to name names, so I'll be searching for a non-cheeseball way to refer to him) and I started participating in a workplace wellness program.  It started with water aerobics, but eventually we discovered a weightlifting class that we both enjoyed.  For the next year and a half, we went to 45-minute to an hour exercise classes 2-4 times a week.  This varied with our daughters' school activity schedules and son's work- and school schedule (since the classes were after 5, and he babysat).  When in conflict, I would opt out of attending, or sometimes we would alternate.  This continued to shift from semester to semester, until in the Spring semester 2018, we were both trying to attend weightlifting twice a week. This stopped with my termination in May 2018, since I am no longer eligible, but my husband does still attend.

So how did this impact my intellectual activity?  Well, first, it took up time.  I had to schedule it in.  I had to account for changing into workout clothes, bathing when I got home, and delaying supper plans (or bringing home take-out).  After a day of work, the intense 45-60 minutes left me pretty exhausted and unfit for all but the lightest of reading, and that's until I fell asleep and the Kindle fell off my lap.  However, I was certainly energized overall; I felt stronger (if sore as hell).  I did fret about health-related things for my husband and myself like the possibilities of blood clots and heart rate things (which were not helped by the fact that the doctor I was seeing is like Professor Sybill Trelawney, predicting my early grave in not so many words because of somewhat elevated blood pressure and cholesterol (but I thought exercise helped those things? so give them a chance to help, already!)  So scheduling, fretting, etc. meant less time for anything.  And prioritizing health was clearly not prioritizing grading, so tech writing papers got back to students late (not even touching on the soul-sucking misery that is grading tech writing semesters in a row without relief) which students hate with a fiery passion because they can't assess their GPA accurately enough to drop the class before they get a B.  I'm not even kidding.  But I digress....  And to be fair, I was procrastinating grading in favor of scholarly things, too.  So I have discovered that exercise really does impact intellectual activity, and I'm afraid the negatives (time-consuming-ness) may outweigh the positive impact (energizing overall, or at the right time of day) on productivity.  Meanwhile, just teaching and exercising a bit, I lost about 10 lbs. after quitting my desk job.  I also gained some noticeable (to me) muscle tone from weightlifting, which I have struggled to keep to some extent.

Over the summer, I tried to do something to avoid gaining 5 or 10 lbs. back.  I was mostly successful, meaning that I was on the lower end of the possible weight gain spectrum.  I enjoy yoga, so I experimented with some Gaiam videos through iTunes, and found a cardio video that I liked that incorporated some yoga, and a really tricky, challenging intermediate yoga that I like, but which is still a bit beyond my skill.  Emboldened by that small success, I subscribed to Gaia, using the Apple TV to watch the videos.  The kids knew to vacate the room for a while each morning (most mornings?) to let me do the yoga.  It was good, but not enough, summer being what it is (unstructured, even for us).  We also tried to do things like bowl using the Kids Bowl Free program.  And then school started, and my son (21) and I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and take a walk each morning before the day becomes too hot to live.  So this is my schedule, though this is usually punctuated by obsessive checking of the university employment page and obsessive checking of email for the inevitable rejection and sprinkled liberally with anxiety, questioning, self-doubt, and Pokémon Go:

7:30 - 7:40 A.M. - leave to bring kids to school and husband to work
8:20 A.M. - return home and eat a minimal but necessary breakfast
8:30 - 9 A.M. - depart on foot for nearby park; walk 2-3 laps, depending
9 - 9:30 A.M. - return home and drink lots of water, recover for a bit
9:45 - 10 A.M. - select and do a Gaia yoga video (usually featuring Clara Roberts-Oss)
10:30 - 11 A.M. - bathe and dress (coffee optional)
11:30 A.M. - start thinking about FOOD
12 - 1:30 P.M. - make or procure food
1 - 2 P.M. - run any necessary errands, usually involving food; coffee at this point becomes NOT OPTIONAL
2 - 3 P.M. - return home with groceries &c., procure or fix coffee, watch t.v. or toodle around on the internet (repeat obsessive checking of employment page, email, and Facebook)
3:45 P.M. - leave to pick up girls from school
4:20 P.M. - return home with at least one daughter
4:30 P.M. - (some days) - return to pick up second daughter from extracurricular activity
4:45 P.M. - (except on the above-noted days) pick up husband from work

That will do.  It doesn't actually account for dropping the Archivist (I'll try that one on for size instead of "my husband") off at weightlifting, but that has just started this week.

The notable thing is that everything up to and including lunch is motivated in some way by exercise.  And woo--I've lost 5 lbs.  I have literally lost 5 lbs. since the girls started school.  That's only 3 weeks.  That's a record for me if we don't count the pounds lost by actually giving birth.  But several hours of every day are spent exercising, recovering from exercise, and feeding my body the calories necessary to continue functioning after exercise--not to mention the caffeine.  And though it varies by day, I'm not really in the state to do much in the way of intellectual activity most days.  My brain is kind of mushy.  Vitamins help.  Food helps.  (Also see above mention of caffeine.)  So even if I could return to my night-owl ways and work on intellectual pursuits at night (which getting up early for work broke me of years ago), I am, once again, exhausted.

The level of exhaustion depends on how much "extra" yoga I do after walking.  The problem is, walking alone doesn't feel like working out.  It feels like so much pounding.  My muscles don't have that "feeling good" feeling that they have after other kinds of exercise.  So... I add yoga.  Sometimes it's only a 10 minute "Quick Stretch" video.  Other times, depending on my body or how "in my head" I am, I opt for a 15 minute or even longer video--sometimes as high as 42 minutes in addition to walking.  And those walks have already increased from 2 laps to 2-3 (depending) and now 3 by default.  It's possible that they will increase to 4 laps soon.  Which is great, right?  Endurance! Woo!  But that means more calories burned (theoretically, although my same number of laps is burning fewer calories: endurance. woo.) which means more thinking about food which also means more tired while the body adjusts... And so on.  Not to mention the extra minutes it takes to walk that extra lap.  And why not just sub out yoga for walking? Well, because I'm the only one who does the yoga, and I have chosen walking as much for my son ("taco guy"? no, he quit that job; "coffee guy"? not yet; "photo guy"? sounds creepy....  It's a work in progress.) as myself, and because the yoga (unless it's a really long, intense yoga) doesn't actually burn the same calories as the walk, or feel the same.

In the meantime, I'm probably getting to that "addicted to endorphins" stage, so if I stop the exercise, I will actually feel bad.  Exercise. Woo.

Which is why I feel like I need a system.  Or--I have a system.  I need to figure out where, when, and how to add intellectual activity.  Maybe I should skip errands.  But then the evening doesn't run as smoothly for the family because we still need to buy the things that we need to buy to make supper and the next day's breakfast and lunch happen.  Blogging might help there, too.  In fact, we're in that "t.v. watching" window right now--and here I am, writing.  And in fact, I've cheated a bit.... because I am writing today (blog day 1) in anticipation of publishing tomorrow (blog day 2)--writing begets writing, apparently.  Maybe I'll use tomorrow to find a picture or two.  Maybe I'll find a way to use those endorphins and put my theory on exercise vs. intellectual activity to rest once and for all.

Until then... the theory stands.

Starting Over?

I was always a terrible diarist. 6 months after I wrote an entry, I looked back on it, became mortified by what I had written, and destroyed it.  So here we are again--with a blank blog, but not a blank slate.  I've set all of my older posts to "draft," since they no longer apply, and I'm not sure what wisdom there is to be gained from them. Having said this, I've been slightly better about blogging than I have with a pen-and-paper format.

A brief rundown....  I am (a young) 41 years old.  A wife and mother.  I hold a Ph.D. in English from a university that has more swagger than sway. I write, sew, and occasionally, draw. I have made some pretty good attempts at an academic career, but have generally been thwarted. The latest thwarting came in May of this year (March through May, really, but there was build-up). I am rather successful at writing and publishing, but not at all successful at securing academic teaching jobs, or at pleasing the administration and students of the school where I received my degree.  

Here's something I've never done before on a blog--this is the big picture of my life over the past 3+ decades:

1993 - Graduated (early) from high school amid friend-related strife; started college in my hometown
1995 - Started dating my husband, in M.A. program at the same university
1997 - Our first child was born; we were married; I graduated with a B.A. in English
1999 - We moved to Big State School in one-horse college town, adjoining state, to pursue grad degrees in English (me) and Poli Sci (husband)
2000 - That Poli Sci thing exploded; I kept trucking along in English
2001 - I finished my M.A. in English; stayed on for the Ph.D. because my husband was getting his second M.A. in Spanish
2002 - Officially started Ph.D. coursework
2004 - I became Catholic; firstborn baptized; marriage convalidated ("blessed" by the Church)
2005 - Still trucking along on Ph.D.; husband is dropped from full-time to part-time lecturer with no explanation and faced with losing benefits, begins work in library; second child born
2007 - Writing dissertation; third child born

About this time, the bottom drops out of the economy and the academic job market.

2008 - I finish dissertation, graduate with Ph.D., and begin life as a postdoc
2008-2009 - I have, if memory serves, THREE phone interviews; possibly at this time, husband is "discovered" and moved to Significant Project and maneuvered into Special Collections/Archives because he has potential to resurrect Significant Project from near-certain doom
2009-2010 - Second postdoc year; I have possibly three more phone interviews and perhaps two campus visits, perhaps one offer from a high school that I turn down for complicated reasons involving "what kind of job we are willing to compromise on"; husband is having success with Significant Project, moving into faculty position from staff
2010-2011 - Third (and final) postdoc year; library refuses to make any move to offer me employment, except a chance at a part-time position that was open, but husband's salary isn't sufficient to allow for less than full-time
2011 - Friends, I got a job interview in New Zealand. It was amazing. First NaNoWriMo attempt results in a half-decent novel draft that's collecting dust in my hard drive because I just don't have the drive to be a novelist; as soon as I was mid-way through NaNoWriMo, I got a soul-sucking job in a miserable, abusive environment and didn't finish by the deadline.

At some point towards the end of all of this, I received some other offers:

• One that I was advised to turn down because of high course load, enrollment per course, and pay (also we had only one car and it was a long commute)
• One that was listed as tenure track, but they would take me sight unseen since they didn't have time to bring me there for a visit; however, they would only offer it as Visiting (not tenure track)--so a 1-year gig in a state that hangs out into the Atlantic Ocean at a school that probably wouldn't want me under normal circumstances
• One that was NOT listed as dual credit, but WAS dual credit, and I would be responsible for driving my own vehicle to rural high schools in an unfamiliar area without reimbursement for gas, would not have an office, and would be the only faculty member with no schedule preference (they were horribly offended when I turned it down)
• One in neighboring state to the north that offered me the renewable Visiting Assistant position, but would not pay for me to visit or meet me if I came up on my own dime; talking to a former Visiting Assistant Prof, the non-tenure track faculty were housed with the grad students and completely separate from the "real" faculty
• One from a high school that rejected me for a full-time position but would let me teach part-time

None of these were worth uprooting my family.

2012 - I get a job as support staff with the university (training) - good people, good pay, dull work that makes me feel incompetent; I keep the job for the next three years, getting less healthy and more depressed all the time
2015 - On a whim, I apply for a lecturer position in the department from which I received my graduate degrees; I am offered the position, at a $12,000+ pay cut; After much soul-searching, I accept; I soon realize that I am not crying on the sofa regularly; I feel energized; I even start thinking about serious, focused research--maybe a book!--with the encouragement of a mentor
2018 - After a period of hiring more lecturers each year, the college decides to only approve a limited number of lecturer positions for English.  Department Head has to decide who not to rehire. A combination of a personal grudge, mixed reviews by students, and a normal grade distribution (not all A's) singles me out for dismissal.  At about the same time, my husband is approved for a promotion.

And George never left Bedford Falls.

I  have published 4 articles in the past 3 years, with another possible publication in 2019.  I have a really good idea for a book.  Some of those articles feed into that book project.  But I have no motivation to work on it.  Nothing to avoid, nothing to look forward to...

Frankly, I'm trying to figure out who I am and who I'm supposed to be.  I don't want to go back to the misery of 2011-2015.  I know that.  I need work that is meaningful and fulfilling--or at least fun.  Failing that? Well, what kind of employment I get is rather theoretical, so there's that.  I have applied all summer with only two interviews--one academic appointment that was 1 year, temporary, and would have required a 2 hour commute 5 days a week.  I shut that one down without even knowing if I would get the offer.  And one interview for a grad student support position that simply wasn't me.  Their interview questions sucked.  I wasn't the candidate they were looking for, and it was clear to all involved.

I am not sure I'm willing to do the academic song-and-dance.  At this moment, I hate the majority of students for sabotaging me.  Because that's what it amounts to.  They don't get the grades they want.  They dislike me because the course is supposed to be an "easy A," and suddenly I'm actually grading their grammar and syntax--because I've seen the results of poor writing in the workplace and the other teachers of the course have not. So they make cruel and false judgments on their course evaluations, never acknowledging the extent to which I actually treated them as human beings (something I learned from working with staff) and tried to help them to improve.  So for failing to meet their expectations, which are based, largely, on some idea that to have below a 4.0 is detrimental to their eventual illustrious careers, I am penalized, and eventually lose my job because of it.  I am not willing to dance like a trained monkey for my crust of bread. And I am not willing to risk putting myself out there and working like a madwoman in the hopes that this time I will do the right thing and not fail.  To do so, I would have to upset the lives of all the people I care about, and I'm not even sure the risk would pay off.  After all, the risk did not pay off last time.  Except that I was perilously close to despair before I left my job in 2015.  And I am not now.  I've lost faith in academic teaching as a profession.  I don't believe in it.  But I have nothing else.  So now what?

I struggle every day with what I should be doing--if there's even anything I should be doing.  I have a schedule of sorts, but while those around me are growing and learning, I am stagnating.  Some new discovery happens for my husband in his workplace; my contribution to the conversation is "I did the dishes" or "the plumber came" or "I did a different yoga video today" or "one of the girls had X problem at school."  And I hate domesticity.  

Time to put a roast in a crockpot.  Literally.

So this is where I am.  And I'm trying to find out where I'm heading.  Will you join me?

Another reboot?: My Latest Declaration of Intended Purpose

Fast forward a year or so since my last post.  Things have changed dramatically, to the point that I had to remove some of my earlier posts about adjuncting and having a full-time nonacademic job because they simply no longer feel true, and while I'm okay with leaving artifacts on a level, I'm not really okay with having words bopping around that I wrote, but which I recognize as potentially misleading or false.  Harsh?  Maybe.  But I have always been so conscious of the relative permanence of the written word that even as a young adolescent, I couldn't write in blank books.  When I did, a few months later I ripped out the pages because the sentiments expressed did not seem true or worthy or whatever.  This probably makes me odd--one of many things.

I am currently at the end of my second semester as a full-time lecturer.  Not permanent, but not adjunct.  My workload is higher, my salary is lower, and I am happier.  I am in a research university environment, which means, among other things, that people take themselves and their research seriously--and in general, too seriously.  I teach many sections of composition (3), but they are relatively low enrollment for a state school (25).  I have, so far, been given one course other than comp each semester--courses that are specialized and upper-level: the first, a writing/rhetoric class; the second, a large-section (147-student section) children's literature course.  In addition, I have, up to this point, been maintaining the one online-only adjunct class.  Much as I would like the additional money, that one seems unsustainable for me.

So what is this blog going to become?  The truth of the matter is that it might become nothing, because even as I sit typing up this little reboot blurb, I am neglecting the remaining 18 essays of the semester.  But as I sit here taking notes on what I want to maintain from this semester, update, or stress differently, it occurs to me that rather than writing an actual composition textbook (though that could happen), I might use this space in a similar way to my Booknotes blog: to record thoughts-in-progress about teaching writing (as that one does about reading literature) that seem worthy of future consideration or development--or occasional mini-rants that I give to my students, like when I told the poor dears that the words "relatable" and "impactful" need to die.  That's just a coming attraction.  Hoping to have a bit of fun with this as I plan for the summer and fall and look to the future of teaching English again!

À bientôt!

Teaching, Training, Telling--towards a theory of elearning Genres

Teaching vs. Telling.  The division is deep.

Context
From December to May, I was teaching an online class in early British literature that required me to devise ways for students to learn in an online-only environment--and really learn, or why were we going through the motions?  I was concerned with making students' means of acquiring information as interactive as possible, and with assigning activities that reinforce the learning while also getting them to think a bit deeper about the ideas, and make connections--all of the things a good instructor is supposed to do.

During this time, I was involved--at my 8-5 job--in ongoing revision to a training certificate program for entry-level adminstrative professional staff.  In the process, the business writing class that we teach was moved to the "II" certificate from the "I" certificate--and I took exception, because even staff who are not writing long documents spend a significant amount of time communicating by email--both internally and externally.  So I proposed something like an "Email Best Practices" class, which would either be taught in person (maybe for an hour) or could be an online course.

When our director said no to a traditional class and yes to the online training, I envisioned something that would allow the user to make choices between good and bad email practices while delivering the essential information--something really interactive that would actually teach.  I don't really think that the 6-hour, 1- or 2-day business writing class accomplishes much in the way of making the participants' writing better, but it does give them strategies for more effective communication.  With the email training, I wanted to actually curb some bad email practies.

Dilemma/Problem
Because the online class is part of a certificate program, and there are people who need to finish in the next few months, there was a bit of anxiety among participants in the program.  This led to the director of my department giving--well, more an ultimatum than a deadline.  At any rate, it has a very different feel than most of my deadlines, perhaps because of how arbitrary it is.  And it's not like it's the only thing on my plate--quite the contrary.  So speaking to my direct supervisor, who is a reasonable person, I received a recommendation (only more forceful than a recommendation, becuase it is bound to the aritrary deadline): just throw some information into PowerPoint and we will convert it to an online class from there.

Just. Throw. Information. Into. PowerPoint.  That's the elearning equivalent of an all-lecture course, and not at all what I had in mind for this course that was really supposed to teach something--to help people to communicate better via email.  I protested.  I bargained.  I philosophized.  But no.  This is the task I have been given--use PowerPoint as an information dump.  I co-presented at a conference earlier in the year about making PowerPoint more interactive.  I have been trying to use PowerPoint to develop interactive tutorials that I can post in Blackboard to give my students an interactive, self-guided lesson.  This upsets me so much.

The Crux
What I realized, speaking with my boss today, is that the contrast between what I want to do and what I have time to do taps into my conception of teaching, and my perception of myself and my role as a teacher--even in designing online materials.  I want to help people to learn.  I don't just want them to fill a checkbox.  This isn't like the type of compliance training that only requires that the information be available, and gives you a checkbox to acknowledge that it has passed in front of your eyeballs.  I wanted more from this.  So my level of satisfaction from this project has just decreased dramatically. It is no longer a teaching problem; it is an efficiency problem.

Solutions and Theorizing...
I could, of course, just create this first version and then revise it and make it as great as I want...  That option was offered, but I don't think that will happen.  I simply don't work like that.  I need purpose and momentum, and once it's up, and not really mine any more but the property of the department (all of you "#altac" people out there, take note--this is life outside of academia), I will simply feel done with it and ready to move on.

Our compromise is to call the training "Tips for," and to change what I saw as the overall purpose.  Instead of teaching, we will simply be listing best practices, more or less.  It won't stick.  It's not designed to.  So it maybe doesn't matter? *sigh*  Not ideal for my original intention.

But I was thinking... There is a place and a time for giving information, and it can be accomplished in different media differently.  As soon as I stopped thinking of it as a "course" and started thinking of it as an "FYI" (more or less), my purpose manifested itself in interesting ways.  Sitting down to introduce the slide show (which will be without sound, because who has time for that?), I immediately asked the question, "Why do we need to write better emails?"  This lead me to investigate statistics on how much we use email in a typical business day.  Email is professional communiation.  So my purpose became, "Let's make it professional communication--and here are some tips."

I can tell people things--I do it all the time.  But I do have to have a purpose in doing so, whether or not it is well-articulated.

Then, there's elearning itself.  There are the really interactive courses (some of them taking up to 30 minutes because hey--the more time you spend clicking through, the more you learn, right? or not...) and the less interactive.  There are some that simply talk to you and others that have you play games.  Some are literally just words on the screen. But each fulfills its purpose.  Some compliance training is like the screen that you sign before picking up a prescription.  Anyone know the information that they're referring to?  Anyone care much?  But someone needs that signature for their records.  Similarly, people dealing with biohazards need to have several text-heavy screens floated past them so that they can click "acknowledge."  I'm not making this up.  It's scary, and I don't believe in it, but that training is fulfilling its own legalistic purpose--which is most emphatically not to teach.

So elearning, you might say, has different genres.  And those different genres make distinct use of the capabilities of the software, some extremely minimal, others extensive.  And maybe compliance training isn't bad training, it's simply what it is--driven by its own purpose which has eveything to do with the liability of the provider and absolutely nothing to do with the increased understanding of the user.  So... genres.

It doesn't make me happy to have to shift from elearning as a teaching platform to elearning as an information dump, but at least I have a way to reconcile myself to the circumstances and something to think further about.  Genres of elearning.

Small Successes II: Success with Sonnets!

My life so far in April has been characterized by hope, uncertainty, disappointment, and hope all over again--so basically stress--the cause of which is an unexpected and un-looked-for job possibility at a school I applied to in August for a completely different position.  None of this has anything to do with my current adjunct class, which has been rolling along.  So I'd like to describe another success.

This activity was designed to give students a sense of the expressive potential of sonnets, the shifts in the poems, and different possible interpretations of individual poems.  First, I found pairs of actors' interpretations of individual sonnets.

Sonnet #	Read by
12	David Tennant
	John Gielgud
18	Tom Hiddleston
	David Tennant
	Michael York
29	Matthew Macfayden
	Patrick Stewart
73	Andrew Motion
	John Bell
116	Patrick Stewart
	Juliet Stevenson
	John Gielgud
130	Alan Rickman
	Daniel Radcliffe**
	Stephen Fry
	Tom Hiddleston
	American Sign Language Version
144	Niamh McGrady

Students were asked to follow these steps:

1. Read the sonnet. Record your reactions below—the subject(s)/topic(s) of the poem (such as the beloved and immortality, or thepower of literature/poetry), the speaker’s attitude toward the subject, the thesis/argument that the poem is making about the subject,the tone and/or mood of the poem.2. Listen/view one reading of the poem from the list. What mood does the actor portray? Does the actor’s mood change? Record wherethe actor changes the mood (line 5? Between the second and third quatrain? Etc.) Does this reading agree with your own? Does itchange your impression?3. Listen/view a second reading of the poem from the list. What mood does the actor portray? Does the actor’s mood change? Recordwhere the actor changes the mood (line 5? Between the second and third quatrain? Etc.) How does the second performance compareto the first?

I also created a worksheet with a chart to help students to be able to record these observations--because poetry analyses, in particular, need some structure!

The responses were good overall--better when the student wrote a bit more about the poem initially, when there was a significant contrast between the two versions, or when one version impacted the student's initial interpretation gained from reading the poem.  Sometimes, I suspect that the readings actualy influenced an interpretation where none had existed before--also a good thing.  And frankly, I really enjoyed finding the sonnets.  It was gratifying that the videos were able to substitute for discussion of interpretations, giving a sense of what the sonnets were about, as well as their ambiguities (the versions of #130 were particularly good for this).  I believe the students enjoyed the readings as well.

After they completed the worksheet activity, I had them post a comparison/contrast of two versions of the same sonnet to a discussion forum to share with the class--the online equivalent of a brief presentation and an assignment follow-up that I require often, since they are learning from each other to a large degree.  I haven't looked at these yet, but the forum theoretically gives students the opportunity to bring their ideas together into paragraphs rather than leaving them in the chart.

Small Successes I: Paper Activities

So I realize that I haven't had much to say in a while about my class, and in part, I want to record the successes that I've had along the way--things that I hope to repeat in the future.  I know that last time I checked in I was on the verge of despair.  *sigh*  I still have more moments of weariness than enthusiasm, but I haven't felt that bad since that week.  I have also been allowing myself to read for pleasure more, and not forcing myself to read along with everything I assign.  The latter makes me feel like a bad teacher, but it's not as if I'm lecturing on it, so I'll give myself a pass.

One thing that I feel I have done the right way is breaking the steps of the paper down for them and requiring students to "check in" (more or less) to demonstrate that they are working on the paper.  These assignments help them to stretch out the work on the assignment rather than saving it until the last minute.  They give me the opportunity to monitor progress--or not, because for the most part the burden is on them (which I'll explain).  Because they are wrestling with the paper over time, I do, in fact, hear more from them when things aren't going quite right, if they get stuck, etc.  This is definitely a success in an online course.  

What I'm proposing is something that was standard in composition classes--Topic Proposal Memo, Thesis Statement, List of Sources, Outline (maybe), Rough Draft, Final Draft.  Besides teaching time management and giving the opportunity for feedback along the way, we were also making sure that if a student was inclined to plagiarize, the supporting materials would have to be plagiarized, since a paper would not be accepted without them.  That's not really my rationale, since my paper is fairly unique and probably can't just be downloaded.  What is unusual is requiring these steps for a sophomore-level class.  Sophomores are supposed to be able to do these things on their own, right?  And sink or swim?  Well...  not really.  Not in reality. 

One of the amazing things about the online-only class is the opportunities I have along the way to correct what they're thinking about things, how they're interpreting things, how they are expressing their ideas in writing.  In class, if they don't speak, I don't know what they're thinking. Because the class meets every day, there are no assignments designed to let me know what they're thinking--whether they're getting it.  As a result, they don't necessarily get it, and I don't know until the test.  Heck--they don't know until the test.  In this case, I know.  And if we can have a discussion about it where other students can see, I'm actually teaching.  Yay!  This is how being a "guide" instead of a "sage" can still be an important function, requiring a teacher who is insightful and engaged.  

This paper was a beginning lit review, if you will.  My intentions (objectives, really) were to have them be able to write a research question, use it to do research, find scholarly sources on a literary topic, read and summarize, and begin to synthesize the sources in a very basic way in order to present the articles to an audience who wishes to know more about the literary topic in question.  It took a bit of wrangling to get them there, and I haven't graded the papers yet, but I know that learning has happened along the way.

Their supporting activities were:

1. A research question posted to a forum.  Each student had to post a question in order to see others' questions so that they were not influenced beforehand.
2. A bibliography submitted as an assignment to the instructor only.  This gave me the opportunity to check to see whether the sources were scholarly and whether the bibliography format was correct.
3. A rough draft/peer review wiki.  While it did not really function as a peer review, it could have.  Students posted their rough draft to a new page in the wiki.  They could also make changes to theirs (technically they could have to others' as well), and make comments on their and others' drafts.  If they wanted my feedback, they had to solicit it, and one did.  I could have forced each student to comment on another's draft, but feedback-by-coersion is not typically good quality stuff, so I let it go.

I had many questions during the first two stages.  Some were caught up in adhering to the question or making it perfect, so those people learned that research ideas do mutate.  Many, many students learned to construct better database searches.  And at least half of the remaining students had a rough draft in time.  All in all, a success--they did not drift away completely.

These supporting assignments were only worth 25 points each.  At first, I was going to roll these in to the daily grade equivalent--a pathetic 10% (which should be more given the effort).  Instead, I decided to reward their efforts by making the 75 points part of the paper grade, which is 15% of the overall grade.  I believe that the effort of staying on task and the learning activities involved deserve to be 3/7 of the 15%, because they are being rewarded, here, for the considerable effort of learning on their own, being engaged, and asking for assistance when they needed it.

Admitting defeat

I think it's time to face facts.  I probably won't be continuing as an adjunct past this semester.  This makes me terribly sad.  It was fulfilling.  It gave me purpose.  It made me feel important.  It was exciting to develop the activities and search for the extra resources (because I'm not a fan of the textbook resources) and exciting to know that the students were learning, or were making connections, or at the very least, were enjoying the activities and literature.  But as the semester wears on, I have to face facts.  I'm terribly behind.  The level of instruction is sub-par.  And I don't have time to even read the material that I'm teaching because of the 40-hour job, exhaustion, illness (mine), travel (someone else's), grading, and, you know, regular meals and such.  Note that I did not say housework.

Perhaps it's because I made the test too long. I'm grading it question by question and it simply goes on forever.  Because I'm knee-deep in exams (which I don't even think should exist in online courses), I haven't spent as much time interacting with students through the weekly online activities, which means that I miss the learning.  I have a really interesting assignment "out there" that I haven't been able to look at--casting Everyman with conteporary actors.  Perhaps when the exam dust settles I will have time. I only have 6 more questions to grade for each student, but this week has not let me breathe.  In the meantime, I should be posting the assignments for King Lear, and I simply don't have any.  The only reason I'm even teaching Lear is because it's in the textbook and we have to do Shakespeare.  There is another play, but it's a Comedy.  I have a trio of "serious" plays that I'm teaching, so Lear it is.  I like Lear.  A lot.  But so much of this course material seems wasted on an online class.  So in spite of the stimulation, there's a lot of discouragement and feeling that I'm simply not performing up to par.

In life right now... well, I've had a lot going on as well.  Three classes in the past two weeks, one of them new and one of them rather demanding.  Plus, I have been prepping for a conference presentation that was yesterday.  While these things happen at work (8-5), they affect my intellectual energy (and actual energy) when I get home.  These classes have left me feeling overwhelmed--the last thing I want to do is come home and engage with online class activities.  Well, that's not entirely true.  But I need some decompression time that I never seem to get.   Particularly this week, when my husband is traveling for the high profile part of his job.  *sigh*  I have been feeling that this position is for someone older, with grown children, or better paid, with a trophy (second) wife who doesn't work.  Certainly not for a family man with young children and a wife who would like to make a career for herself one day, and keeps struggling in that direction in spite of failure and setbacks.  And when my helpful teenager goes off to college... I don't even want to think about it.  Then, I will feel really alone when these trips happen.

It is just too much.  I'm not sure the happiness I gain is worth the cost.  But... I still don't think teaching online is the problem.  The problem is being a full-time 40-hr employee somewhere and teaching as an extra.  Because it's not a hobby. I joked that it was, but you can't truly make a passion for your job into a hobby.  It demands too much time and energy because you want to do it.  And then you can't.  And sadly, I don't think I can.

The Frustrations of Being Scheduled

Today, I'm reeling from the chaos of the weekend.  One of the side-effects of adjuncting is that I have to make time for myself to work.  Or, rather, I have to scehdule myself non-negotiable times to work which then bleed into every aspect of my life when I'm not working my 40-hour job.  I actually rather like sponteneity.  But now, it seems, in order for me to feel like I've done what I need to do for the day... or evening... or weekend... I need to stick (at least partially) to my schedule.  And I hate it.  Becuase when I don't get off on the right foot, I feel utterly dissatisfied.  Enter the weekend.

I have no idea what Friday looked like.  I can't remember that far back.  I think there were fish sticks involved.  Ah yes--Friday.  The day I did not leave the office for lunch, making me feel like I didn't accomplish a thing all day.  A good start.  Last week was pretty busy at work-work, and I have everything to grade, from the last thing we covered before the first exam (Chaucer) to the exam itself, which I am grading question by question instead of exam by exam.  I have realized in so doing that my exam was too long--for me, not for them--and that I need some objevtive questions:  nice, self-grading, multiple choice. After 4 or so grading sessions, I have finally whittled them down to 6 test questions left.

On Saturday, my daugther usually has archery practice.  This Saturday, she did not.  So everyone slept in.  The problem is that I have office hours at 10 A.M.--this is my "good start" to the weekend.  I guess I should have seen it coming.  I suppose I should have said explicitly--WAKE ME UP.  But I didn't.  So they let me sleep. It was a little bit gloomy and sort of cold, so I slept.  I woke at 10:42, realizing that I was well past the start of office hours--so why start now?  I went to the living room, was promptly pestered about the impending birthday party for a friend at 3 P.M., and went to bathe and get dressed.  We ate bagels and had coffee and then went to run errands, including the purchase of the party present.  Well, the errands were frustrating.  In one case, there was a startling encounter with a rude and crass person who made gestures that no one over the age of 15 should really make toward anyone, much less a harmless car full of strangers including two young children.  So... lovely.  By the time we went home, it was party time.  I did not go.  Rather, I stayed with the other two children and contemplated backing up my hard drive so that I could buy more RAM--which would make actually working on my 2011 MacBook Pro a possibility.  Failing to find the cords for the extrenal hard drive, I went to Best Buy and purchased a 64GB flash drive and the 8GB memory sticks for my computer.  Then I went back in Best Buy to get the sale price I had been promised hours earlier.  By the time I got home again, the birthday party attendees had returned.  My files finished transferring to the flash drive.  Begin part two of Saturday.

My husband occupies a visible position in an international scholarly initiative.  He is the face of his project, you might say.  And as I type, he is on his way to Mexico, all of which causes its own fits of angst.  But I am very proud of him, and the reputation he has gained, and because I wanted him to look the part, and because we finally sort of have the money for him to look the part (not that I'm not having retroactive hives a bit because of spending it), I suggested suit shopping.  And that took a couple of hours, but yeilded great results.  After that foray, we bought our third non-homecooked meal of the DAY (I hate that) and headed home, where the starving (well, not quite) children were.  We ate, I might have done something or other with a batch of clothes, and then the memory instillation happened. It was wonderful. Still is.  No problems.  Twice the RAM.  No more minute delay starting Microsoft Word.  I barely even noticed iPhoto trying to import photos from my phone.  A new era has begun.  And yet, you might notice that I still have not, at this point, done any actual work for my class.  This is what happens when I get off to the wrong start on Saturday.  And... frustration ensues.

So of course, I had to do work.  I had to.  And by this time, it was night.  Before, during, and after the girls went to bed, I worked on the class.  There was no prep for the religious ed--but that's a whole different matter.  And the result was that I was keyed up and didn't sleep well, which starts a whole cycle.

Sunday was cold and wet; religious ed.  Mass.  Both were fine, which is great.  An uneventful Sunday is a good Sunday.  We went to two different locations of our favorite chinese restaurant, and had some editorial comments by the staff on our seating choice (a booth) and our order (that's a lotta food--umm, yes).  Went home, and I'm not sure what else I did besides work on the class--grading, activities, grading, emailing a student who wanted more generic help on everything.  Oh yes!  I helped coordinate dress clothes options for my husband who was packing. I stopped working at midnight or so, and could do nothing else--I mean, I could have, but it was time for bed, as we would have to get up early to coordinate shuttles to catch flights and children to school and whatnot.   But having only one parent in the morning is hard.  Besides that on Sunday I started looking around and the chaos and realizing that with only one parent in the house, that chaos was MY chaos--and mine alone.  I think I just got moodier until bed.  And working up until bed is bad for me.

So now my week starts.  And it is a hectic week--one 2-day (6 hr) class to teach on Outlook, a presentation to give in between, no helpmeet.  And I feel like I did nothing during the weekend, because I didn't get off to the right start on Saturday.  And I gave up trashy romance novels (a recent guilty pleasure) for Lent.  So no escapism.  *sigh*  Oh, and I haven't written anything in over a week because I had the bright idea to revise the older novel instead of fleshing out the new.  Feeling so unproductive and busy and behind and frustrated and resentful.

I'm fine, really! -or- If you don't have your health...

No, really!  I am!  I'm not feeling stressed, though I guess I am.  See the post about down time.  That was sort of a low point.  I feel like my expectations are becoming a bit more realistic.  I am striving to have the next week's unit done in time for it to be released to the students, rather than trying to build up a queue of 2 or three to give myself space.  The grading, which I feared, is not bad.  I simply work through several submitted assignments a day (more or less) and then work on prepping or researching the lesson that needs to go up.  I'm a little behind.  The Chaucer lesson is 2/3 of the way done.  It was released on Monday with the Wife of Bath module listed as "Coming soon!"  But since they haven't even finished the Old English poetry unit (the first one) and they have a short module on Arthurian history/romance, I can't say I'm worried that they're going to be champing at the bit for the Wife of Bath.  I wouldn't.  Would you?

My problem is that I have some odd little pains in my chest throughout the day that worry me a bit.  Over the summer, I had a couple of weeks when I was feeling like my heart was racing quite a lot, and similar little pains.  Some shortness of breath.  The pains felt like the horrible stabbing heartburn that I had when I was pregnant with daughter #1.  The shortness of breath felt like anxiety.  By thinking about it, I seemed to make it worse.  There was a lot going on at the time.  A trip to Ft. Worth with just the kids because my usual traveling companion was traveling for work.  A proposed trip to visit a campus with my oldest (though we didn't make it). When my husband travels, I get anxious.  When I travel, I get anxious.

I decided to go to a doctor and see whether this was a problem.  I had spoken to my OBGYN months before about the palpitations (which had already stopped by the time I saw her), and she said if it returned, she could set me up with a monitor.  That seemed extreme when they returned in August or so.  So I went to a family practitioner.  She was young--too young--and seemed more occupied with her shadowing med student than me.  She did an EKG.  Hello??? EKG???  (Which, I should say was perfectly fine.  Beautiful.  And all of my levels were normal to on the high side of normal.) And referred me to a cardiologist.  Done.  Well, that seemed extreme.  I didn't go.  I stopped taking my vitamins (which seemed to be contributing to the effect). We switched permanently from Starbucks ground coffee to Mystic Monk, which I prefer anyway.  That, for some reason, made a HUGE difference.  And life continued with no further thumpings or beatings or racings. Until now.

The doctor did ask if I had a stressful lifestyle.  I said no.  I pondered that after, trying to figure out what I really meant by "stressful."  So this is a post about work-life balance.

I have not changed my coffee--well, okay.  I was drinking an extra cup, bringing my daily total up to two--in addition to my Dr. Pepper, soft drink of choice, which is not daily, but close.  But the small stabbing pains--anxiety? heartburn? something else?--have returned, and I get short of breath sometimes.  The heart racing isn't as it was--so the Starbucks must have been a serious contributing factor (though I can still buy their drinks without a problem).  But something feels different, not quite normal, and the same as before.

And all I can think of is that question about stress.  What is stress?  I answered "no" because I was generally happy (if not quite satisfied with my work situation), and didn't feel overwhelmed or unable to cope with what I had to do.  I'm not sure if I believe that "busy" is the same as stressed.  When I have felt most stressed recently (last fall), it has had to do with others' illnesses, teacher matters, and general family interactions.  Not simply the daily living of my life--except insofar as those things influence the daily living of my life.  So okay, I live a stressful lifestyle.  Sometimes.

Right now, I have more on my plate than ever, but I'm coping surprisingly well.  So what's with the pains and the heart and the lungs??  I am teaching religious ed.  That is stressful.  My older daugther is in 4-H archery.  She had a competition over the weekend that she wasn't ready for, and my heart aches for that. Of course, everyone around me is dropping like flies to some plague or other, so that's stressful. My younger daughter's school situation has improved since last semester, as has my son's (12th grade), so that's good.   Money isn't really a problem now as it has been.  I work at work, of course, but that's rarely stressful.  I have my class that I'm teaching online, which means that my evenings and weekends are occupied with work, which is often hard to come to terms with.  I do other things, too, but it feels like I am constantly working.  However, I am also engaged.  My mind is active and I am happier and more satisfied with everything.  I am writing more on the blog and in a notebook (creatively), which is good.  But I am busy.  Busy, busy, busy.  I don't read on the sofa in the evenings--I work.  I don't slump against my husband's shoulder on the sofa and doze a bit before bed--because I'm working.  I don't sleep as well. I'm often dreaming about something work-related.  Last night I dreamt that I had borrowed the velvet Victorianesque ensemble of an author I like without asking, and was modeling it and trying to get it back before she noticed.  Huh.  A good night is when I don't remember what I dream.  I'm dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, all the time.  Maybe it's the coffee (I've cut back down to one cup).  Maybe it's late night engagement.

So is my lifestyle stressful?  I'm inclined to say no at the moment.  But it is sleep-deprived. And I'm on.  All the time.  I'm thinking the sleep might be the problem.  When my husband travels, I don't sleep.  I often stay awake until 3 A.M.--listening.  Because I'm the only one around to protect everyone.  I will also fall asleep with or in a book.  This accounts, perhaps, for the symptoms over the summer and connects them to what I'm feeling now.

I'm most peaceful these days when writing--reflective, contemplative activity.  A substitute for sleep, perhaps?

Because I can't not be...

Lately, the conversation going on around me (online) has centered, to a large degree, on an article about the writer's life, and particularly, how writers treat, or lie about, the sources of income that allow them to write.  While this doesn't directly apply to me, it has spawned some conversation that does apply to me, and also some thought.

I am not a writer.  I mean, I am a writer.  I call myself "a compulsive writer in search of a subject," and that works for me rather nicely.  Sometimes, I have to write.  I am also a compulsive blog-creator, though I have two right now that are actually active.  I am also trying to put together a story (I guess you would call it a novel, but for now it's just a story), which means that I do sneak 10-minute intervals at lunch and sometimes at work.  But I have never deluded myself that I could make money by writing, even though I was an English major and seriously considered the creative writing "track" (which would have required a class on the history of the English language, and I wasn't up for that at the time).  Even now, the idea of writing fiction for profit seems laughable to me, although I know people who are doing it, trying to do it, or claiming to do it, as the case may be.  Each and every one of them does, in fact, have another source of income though, so the claims are dubious.

It might be because I grew up in New Orleans that I was never deluded about "making a living" as a writer.  I'm not sure that my crowd ever aspired to the kind of lifestyle that everyone seems to want these days--at least in Texas.  A modest house and the ability to eat and pay the bills while not working so hard you were miserable seemed to be what most of us wanted--except, of course, that we were also creative types who could not imagine living without writing or acting.  My English teachers never made it sound like writing for a living was a thing--creative writing or otherwise.  All of the writers I knew were teachers.  I never felt deluded for a moment, even when our junior English class attended the gala for the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society as a reward for stuffing envelopes.  The writer's lifestyle was normal living and this, too.  But we were certainly encouraged to try.  And I have, though not with as much dedication as when I was an undergrad getting rejection slips from The Southern Review.  

So in New Orleans, which has a literary culture, I was never told that writing would or could or should be my life.  Frankly, I thought getting advanced degrees and teaching college was a much more practical plan that would still make time for include necessitate writing.  It might be that I was a poet--no one makes money from poetry.  Poets write poetry because poets have to write poetry.  I thought that was simply how it worked.  I am a writer because writers have to write and I have to write.  (No, that's not exactly a run-on.)  And, in a similar vein, I got a Ph.D. becuase I had to get a Ph.D.  Not because I was particularly... whatever people think.  It was simply something I had to do because I couldn't not do it.  (Not doing it would mean getting a real job, and I'm still not ready for that!)  I guess I feel sorry for starry-eyed people who think they can make a living writing novels (some do, but I would bet even fewer than those who land tenure track positions).  Except I don't really feel sorry for them because hello? Reality.  It's all around us.  People.  Working.  Again, I call myself a "cynical idealist."  This might be why.

So working to write.  I get that.  Having someone else working so that you can write.  I guess I get that, but to a lesser degree.  That kind of lifestyle requires more privilege than I have ever had, if only so that the bills that you have in order to have home and food and transportation are not greater than the one income, or to avoid massive student loan debt because there was help from other places.  It's not something I envy, it's simply something I didn't have.  And yes, I made the choice to have more student debt.  I don't really regret that either.

What I find strange and unsettling is that having a Ph.D., aspiring to make a living as an academic, whether or not one lands a tenure track job, is regarded as just as ridiculous as aspiring to make a living as a writer, if not more so since there's a glamour about writing, and academics are subject to more negative stereotypes in many corners.

What I also find strange and unsettling is that I'm a teacher--and I'm a teacher because I can't not teach.  Like being a writer.  Like when I thought I would be a poet.  And so I adjunct.  Which means that I have to have a day job.  Some adjuncts teach many classes at ALL of the colleges so that they can scrape together a living while retaining the purity of their pursuit.  These are the ones starving in the hedgerows and complaining about it.  I'm a scab.  A strikebreaker.  The one who goes to work while others are picketing outside.  Because I don't really need the pay, I rather feel as though I'm supporting a corrupt system that exploits the abundant overeducated labor force.  Writers don't really have to face that.  Writing is a glamorous, solitary occupation with a "high and lonely destiny." Teaching requires an infrastructure.  And I'm also an online teacher. For an online only branch campus that wants its online academic instructors to be adjunct only.  That's a whole different level of scabbiness.  But heck.  The adjunct-only adjuncts probably do more to support a system that keeps me (and themselves) out of teaching full time, simply because they're there to exploit, whereas I said no.  I would not be exploited.

So what I keep coming back to is this:  I am working full-time, not to support my writing habit, but to support my teaching habit.  My unglamorous, slightly suspect, scabby little teaching habit.  Because I'm a teacher, and teachers are compelled to teach.

Food for thought.

Adjuncting Week 2: Wearing down already?

My online British Literature class started last Tuesday.  This is week 2, but that's a little deceptive.  I have been working on this class all month, but now there are students and things to grade.  I look at myself, and I know that in spite of the excitement, I'm wearing down.

The ideal would be to have the new lessons/new material set up several weeks in advance--or since I am workign by "Topics" rather than "Weeks," a few Topics in advance.  But I didn't manage to get a head start because I was setting up the orientation and framework in an unfamiliar interface.  Still--I am on time, and since they're working at their own pace, and since Topic 1's deadlines aren't until next Monday, it's good that I have Topic 2 up and running.  If anyone legitimately wants to work ahead (and I have one who is trying to game the system by not reading and turning in b/s), they can do so.

My nerves are a little thin.  I turned to the blog after snapping at a friend on Facebook--and someone who tends to give me the benefit of the doubt--because I felt like I was being called out for being an obnoxious pain.  This followed a casual chat (ha) with a co-worker about a conference abstract we submitted that was heavily edited by our boss before submission and without my permission, that I now have to live with.  So that was definitely a contributing factor.

Here I am on a Monday, returning to work.  I have a project to work on, and a 6-hour Business Writing class (training session) that I do not want to teach tomorrow.  My weekend felt a little frenetic.  Heck, so did my week.  I get through my workdays now by looking forward to getting off of work--so that I can go home and work.  It's not ideal, even if it is a generally positive thing.

What's going on with the class is this:

• Students needed to complete orientation lessons, take a quiz, and post instructor and peer introductions by last Friday.
• I have followed up (or tried to follow up) with those who did not complete that lesson, or who completed the quiz with less than 90% correct.
• I have graded most of the introductions that have been submitted, and all of the quizzes.
• Students are working on the Old English Poetry topic (or unit).  They have another week to complete it.
• The Matter of Britain/Arthurian topic is up for those who are working ahead.
• I need to get the Chaucer unit ready to go (and I don't particularly like Chaucer).
• I want to compose a Week 2 Announcement that reviews what students should have accomplished/learned by now.

I am taking my time grading the Introductions because I feel like the introduction is an important place to establish a relationship with students by responding to their concerns and commenting on their goals.  It's time-consuming, but also rewarding.

My weekend felt like a lot of grading, which I did in many blocks.  It also involved a lot of emailing and entering zeroes.  I checked in with my good friend who is coaching me through this (even though it is not her job to do so) frequently. When I wasn't doing basic bookkeeping, I was reading and finding and typing quotations for a quote analysis exercise, formatting that worksheet, and posting it to the online course.  Although I thought that the topic was ready to go live early Sunday (It went live 12 A.M. on Monday), I realized after my girls were asleep (probably about 10:30 P.M.) that I had completely forgotten one of the key pieces I wanted to add--clips from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I had to find the clips, make sure they weren't internet fakes, and post them, then create the accompanying discussion board--all before cutting my husband's hair (which I like to do so that I have control over how short it is), bathing (to get off the cut hair), and going to bed.  

The weekend felt a bit out of control. In reality, I did things other than work on the class.  We got tires for our Highlander at SAM's and did some shopping.  I made some returns--two pairs of boots that I ordered online that did not fit and a pair of jeans that I ordered that were not supposed to be black--and bought some Origins for my son, who is trying to fight acne with minimal medical intervention.  We went to the vigil mass (so that we did not have to attend the parish at which I am co-teaching religious ed).  I drank two nice, dark beers--that's excessive for me.  I taught religious ed on Sunday morning--completely without prior preparation, as it turns out, because my co-teacher can't decide what our respective roles are or whether she is able to be responsible for the lesson consistently. We went to Target (as a family--which is how we do most things) and ate at McAlister's.  I folded many baskets of clothes because I knew that if I approached the computer, I would grade introductions, and the work I had already done had left me achy and bleary and fuzzy-headed.  But there seemed to be very little down time.  I didn't read anything recreational.

I mention the achiness.  I was dreadfully afraid that I was getting the flu, but I wasn't.  The constant working does seem to be taking its toll in a couple of ways, though, and I felt achy from Friday to Sunday.  I have also felt a teeny bit queasy every evening from Wednesday, when I had to get off the phone with my mom because I was not feeling well, to Sunday.  I do tend to get this way from being over-tired, and I have been forcing myself to keep going by means of caffeine.  Otherwise, my evenings had/would have been spent on the sofa with a book, curling up in my husband's shoulder and (often) falling asleep.  An extra cup of coffee is taking care of that.  And my stomach wants to protest a bit.  I might be getting some extra heart-palpitations--which had mainly gone away when I switched from brewing Starbucks coffee at home to Mystic Monk.

Yet--I can't deny that in a lot of ways, I'm happier.  I'm more creative.  I'm engaged.  I bought some notebooks to try to write a little of the story I started three years or so ago--at least during weekdays. My vocabulary is even a bit different.  But I miss my down-time.  And I feel behind with the class.  Stretched--too thin--like butter over too much bread.  But there are only so many hours in the day, and between 8 and 5, I'm forbidden to work on the class.

And that's how it stands at the beginning of Week 2.

A New Chapter: Adjuncting

After a recent academic job search disappointment, I wrote my last post--a letter to potential committees--and removed my half-baked attempt to synthesize my past life as an academic and my present life as an 8-to-5-er from the blog.  I don't know if I envisioned a fresh start or not, but here I am....

And it really is a fresh start.  It is a new year, and I have taken a brave and ambitious move into adjuncting--online adjuncting.  It suits me.  I like technology when it is working for me--not simply to play with it.  I like the idea of teaching a class that is self-paced.  I like being able to develop a class at leisure, if you will--without the "what will I do NOW, TODAY" pressure.  Not that I don't work well with that pressure, but I do find that if my emphasis is on the next class meeting, I am less likely to really develop the larger picture.  It's all about "do I lecture, or do I make them do stuff on their own?" Well, it's all on their own, and while there's the question of how I will convey the information that I feel is essential, there's not the pressure for me to perform it in front of a class--to know what to say and how to answer the question that someone will ask that I am unprepared to answer (though I still do that in my day job).

Don't Give Up Your Day Job

I know that I am in a pretty privileged position as an adjunct--and. . . that's okay with me.  This is the way to do it, really.  I guess I was never quite as idealistic as I assumed--or I like to eat.  One of the two.

I read an article today about a so-called "college professor" who is "highly educated" and yet can't make ends meet.  I read about these things all the time.  I admit that I feel a little more smug than I should--for all of my angst, I stand behind my decision to get a job that would allow my family a reasonable amount of comfort rather than running around in pursuit of adjunct positions.  Although I did have a couple of non-adjunct positions I could have taken,and would not technically have had to adjunct;  I still would have been earning less than I do in my full-time job, whatever the other benefits might have been (and clearly I wasn't convinced that those benefits would have been worth it).

Full-time adjuncting?  Yeah.  Sounds like hell to me. I'm afraid that adjuncting "on the side," almost as a--I laugh a little as I say it--hobby is really the way to do it.  And I was fortunate to find a school that needs its online adjuncts--more than I need them, as my friend who is a full-time faculty member of one of the college's branches tells me.

With the financial security of two good salaries--which, for the first time, bump us into a very interesting income-bracket--I almost forget that the school will be paying me.  That sounds terrible, doesn't it?  But the amount they're paying me would be highly insignificant if adjuncting was my only source of income.  It's still fairly insignificant, but in a different way.  And that's liberating.  I can focus on the parts I enjoy rather than the injustice of it all.

Working ALL. THE. TIME.

One of my deep reservations, and the reason that I have never pursued adjuncting before, even with a community college in the neighborhood (which is overwhelmed with a glut of grad students), is that I didn't necessarily absolutely didn't want to work all the time.  But I'm afraid it's starting.  The semester starts next Tuesday for the school that has hired me to teach (it's a strange and wonderful thing, after all of this time, to have a school hire me to teach).  Students are able to access the online course starting this week--this past Tuesday, in fact.  And while I am not obligated to have any content up for them this first non-week, a friend advised that the orientation lesson can (and probably should) go up so that they can start practicing navigating the online course.  So all of last week, last weekend, and all of this week, I worked my job, came home, and assembled or created the pieces of my class to meet deadlines.  It was....  a little exhilarating, actually.  Particularly the parts when I realize that I do know this stuff after all, or when I use my knowledge of technology (gained from my day job) to create something that I think will engage the students.  I have needed to up my coffee intake by adding a cup in the (early) evening.  I only drink one usually, so that's not too bad.  (Particularly when most adjuncts I know cope by drinking a different type of beverage...)

It will catch up with me.  Last night it was catching up with me a bit.  I didn't have the second cup of coffee. I was depressed because the new boots that I can afford ordered online didn't fit.  And I felt tired--so tired--and aware that I should be doing something for my class.  When I was going to bed, I remembered--I had done something for my class!!  I designed a "wrap-up" essay question for the Old English poetry section that synthesized the things I wanted them to watch/read.  So the evening was not quite a waste.

I also talked on the phone to my mom, and (earlier) listened to my daughter read her school reader (in Spanish, though I don't speak it--much).  The night before I felt bad because I didn't listen to her read.  I rather vehemently suggested that Daddy could listen to her read.  While I was just as likely to do so for any other reason--cooking, composing a blog post, or whatever--I didn't like doing it.  It felt more selfish to be putting her off for a second job that I didn't need to take for any reason other than my perverse failure to feel fulfilled by the other things I have in my life.  So that will take balance.  And one day, if I do achieve gainful academic employment, maybe I will have a summer month to spend with her and her sister.

On the other hand, the work doesn't always feel like work.  It feels like engagement--something that I miss completely in my day job.  I show up; I do stuff; I go home.  They pay me well and I work with some cool people.  But I have nothing to challenge my mind.  Even the things that should challenge me in that context are things that I find absolutely boring.  But packaging early British Lit--not easy stuff in a traditional classroom setting--for the web, and trying to maximize student engagement so that they actually take something away from the class?  That is a challenge worthy of me.

I have no illusions.  I will get tired.  I will get bogged down.  And inevitably, I will get behind.  The novelty will fade, and I will have two jobs.  Maybe.  On the other hand, I will be communicating online with people about literature.  And that's sort of what I do.  So maybe--just maybe--this will be a good thing.