First Day of School

Even in college

Even in college, we have a first day of school, although I admit it looks a bit different than K-12. The students are older, and they have their share of adult problems. Some with children struggle to make time for homework; others have to work full-time; still others are fighting health conditions or watching family members die of cancer. Gone are the days when all our students were 18-24, could afford their college, and had parents who footed the bill. My students are at times tired, stressed, and worried. They’re not sure of the reward for going to college, except that it’s necessary to go to college to get a job. Necessary, but not automatically sufficient.

Being the teacher

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Being the teacher to these students means something different than it did when I was a student. I have to be clearer with instructions because they don’t have the leeway to get things wrong. I have to keep them awake in class. I need to listen with empathy, because sometimes they need someone to talk to. I can’t be infallible like professors of old; I have to work harder, stay humble, be on their level (except when it comes to course content and grading).

What this means to me

This means that showing up to class and teaching is not enough. It means that some of my days will be exhausting, and that I will sometimes be frustrated. It means that I will need support on some days. It means I need to get out of this COVID burnout to do my job.

It means that I am doing something worth getting right.

Writing Lull

I need to get back into writing.

I think the current novel is scaring me because I have to write sex scenes and I so want them not to be cliche.

I could start writing another novel and go back to Walk Through Green Fire. Or I could just buckle down and write it.

I don’t have as much time now that the semester has started, but that may be a good thing — I am sometimes at my most productive when other things compete for my time.

I wish I could put a poster of my novel cover in my office, but that would probably be considered a conflict of interest. I’m okay with that; I need to be as focused on the job as possible, not daydreaming about my other job.

At any rate, I have to get the two parts of my life into balance soon.

Time to Quit Hibernating

Being around people again

It’s been a while, it turns out, since I’ve really been around people, at least in the way where I have real conversations with them.

Last night, I met up at The Pub (yes, the place is called The Pub as if it were an oasis of pub-ness in the middle of uncivilized America) with a friend who’s been out of town for a while. I didn’t realize I was his friend until I was invited to the meetup; he was a former student at the college whose life touched mine tangentially, and we mostly connected over Facebook.

There were six of us, and there was a lot of catching up, and a certain amount of talking about Big Audacious Goals. And we had them, and some of us had fulfilled some, and we sounded hopeful, which is rare in these days.

A whisp of memory

Conversing with the group felt like a fond memory of a group of people I used to hang out with in my college days. We referred to the group as “Saturday Night Group” (which, oddly, sounds like calling a pub “The Pub”). We were a group that watched Star Trek, hung out, and sometimes talked about serious things.

I learned who I really was in that group. I was a bit of a misfit that pined for unavailable men and wandered aimlessly before then, and that group pulled out of me the person I am today — all the mischief, all the depth, all the dreams. I thought I had lost that as part of “growing up”.

Now, however, I know it’s possible, and I will have to put myself forward with people to see if I can find that again. Time to quit hibernating.

The Beginning of the Year

Summer’s end and the New Year

It’s officially the end of my summer. As I’ve said before in these pages, my life goes by the academic calendar. Summer starts about the second week of May, when my schedule becomes more languid. Autumn, and the beginning of my year, starts on the first day of school in the fall.

The semester’s beginning

I go to meetings tomorrow through Tuesday, and then it’s time for classes. I think I’m ready, and I think I’m rested. I think I can clean my office this weekend (the ritual start to the school year). I’m as ready as I can be — with 27 years at this, I think I know what I’m doing. I’m not feeling that rush I feel at the beginning of the fall semester, though. Maybe it’s because I’ve been teaching for almost 30 years (more than that if you count grad school).

Maybe it’s because I’m not going to the beginning of semester picnic, because it’s going to be a couple hundred people and held indoors (so are the beginning of semester meetings, which doesn’t make me happy as I can’t avoid them.)

The rush may come back to me when I stay up for the fireworks next Tuesday, or when I’m back in the classroom, even with all of those masks in the seats (we’re masking again due to the delta variant of COVID).

How to find the thrill

I’m going to find something new to motivate for the school year. Maybe frame one of the three or so posters for my office. Maybe bring in some coffee for my office coffeemaker (a Nespresso). Maybe get my nails done in Bearcat green.

I’m looking for the shine of a shiny new year. Make suggestions for me.

Trouble in Paradise

Trouble with coffee

We’re having trouble with coffee in the household. A coffee crisis, one may say.

Our daily coffee brewing (using an electric vacuum pot, which is hard to find these days) has disintegrated into a pot of coffee that is half good. In other words, the first 1-2 cups are perfect and the rest is either weak or sour.

We’ve been playing with grind size, which is why we go from weak or sour. We’re probably not on the right grind size, or so my husband hypothesizes.

I think there’s something wrong with the heating element of the pot myself. Which is a shame, because KitchenAid no longer makes that coffee maker, and I’m not sure anyone else makes an electric vacuum pot either. It may be time to go back to a French press pot or a pourover or an non-electric vacuum pot or something else low-tech. Something that requires a little more work for this lazy household.

Were you expecting some other type of trouble?

Heavens, I hope not! Things at the household are actually going pretty smoothly, other than my blahs, and I’m about to go into counseling about that. I’ve suffered an identity crisis over the past seven years, because life now isn’t like life before bipolar meds. So I’m seeking some help over that. No trouble at all.

People Move Away and Time Flows On

People move away

I’m having coffee with a friend today. She will be moving to Arizona soon to enjoy her retirement in new surroundings. I don’t blame her; this is not a good town to retire in.

Coffee morning concept, coffee cup with small dish putting on old plank together with stack of notebook over forest outside as background.

We haven’t seen each other in the longest time because of COVID, but we’ve corresponded online in that somewhat indirect way allowed by Facebook. She participates in community band and runs marathons. I, on the other hand, write and self-publish, hoping to get some of my work traditionally published.

Our coffee date will no doubt be a way to catch up and, in a way, to get closure even with Facebook as a medium of exchange. She is embarking on an adventure.

Time flows on without me

I admit I’m jealous of my friend. I have been caught in gaffa (as in the Kate Bush song) for so long, with my writing, my adventures only in books. I used to ask God, “What am I called to do?” but got no tingling that told me what direction to go. I’m not getting too much excitement from writing these days. Nothing is calling me on a quest. No serendipity calls my name, and when I think it does, it falls flat.

I have spoken about this before. I don’t know if this anhedonia is something normal people feel, or if I’m just comparing this pale mood with the elations and depressions I felt before I was diagnosed with bipolar II.

But I’m looking for a quest, a re-energization within COVID, a pleasant surprise, a story to tell as I tell my friend goodbye.

The Beginning of the Semester Looms

Friday is zero hour, the beginning of semester meetings. I’ll sit through a couple days of meetings and then classes start.

This summer emptied out into the flattest vista of grey, and I curled up in it. I know this has been the most restful summer I’ve had, and that if I’m not rested up for the fall, I’ll never be.

This is NOT me.
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I still don’t know if I’m ready for the semester to start. I don’t know if I’m ready for the color and the cacophony of all the college students yet, the part of my life where I stand in front of a class and try to make the subject’s information real, the part where I unleash my odd sense of humor to help capture my students. I have forgotten that “professor” is one of my roles.

But this happens at the end of every summer, and the transition is made easier by the rituals of beginning: The all-employee picnic. The all-staff and faculty meetings. The greeting of new students. The cleaning of my office.

I’m ready. As ready as I’ll ever get. Bring on the cacophony.

The Shortest Hiatus

Twenty minutes

That’s how long it took for me to get back into writing yesterday.

So much for my “I think I’m going to take a break from writing” spell. I guess I’ve become a writer after all.

A strange hobby

Writing is a strange hobby. It doesn’t cost much at first, only the cost of paper and writing implements, or the cost of a computer. It’s not as expensive as woodworking or sewing, and one can get results with very little practice. The writer can even show the results to friends, neighbors, or the entire Internet,

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Then, the writer gets the notion in their head that they’re going to get published. After failing at that, there’s one of two places to go: give up on being published, or hone one’s craft. Writing is addictive, however, and the writer gets drunk on possibility. The writer gets pulled down the path of honing one’s craft.

Honing one’s craft is not cheap. Workshops on structuring the story, software that helps edit, developmental editors — all cost money, and quite a bit of money. But the writer gets better, and tries to publish again, because it’s become part of the hobby. A lot of rejections follow. Sometimes the writer decides to self-publish, but sharpening one’s skills and improving one’s writing still takes priority because writers want to be recognized for their best work.

However, writing intoxicates — an elixir of possibility bubbles up whenever one takes up the pen. Writing mesmerizes its practitioners — they feel the quality of the words, the patterns they make as the words are read. Writing tantalizes — visions of the pinnacle of their art as they finish the last word of a document.

It’s a hell of a hobby.

Doing Nothing

The last few days

I’m facing the last few days before my fall semester starts, and I don’t want to do anything. No writing, no advertising, no anything but binge-watch British medical documentaries.

I may just indulge this need to do nothing. I really haven’t taken breaks from writing for about seven years. Between writing and editing, I’ve been writing for seven years. Almost every day.

A few days won’t hurt. Maybe I’ll get some inspiration, or another book ready for queries.

Or, at least, some rest.

(Anyone putting bets on when I’ll quit my break?)

Waking Myself Up

On the stereo: Funk Essentials

It’s 6:30 AM (or ‘six AM in the morning’ as they say around here). I’ve been up since 5 but not quite awake.

Sometimes, in the mornings, I just have to turn the music up to 11. Today, it’s the Funk Essentials playlist from iTunes. The coffee hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m awake enough to get my mind typing. James Brown’s ‘The Payback’ is playing right now, and I suspect that the never-ending loop of ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ stuck in my husband’s head has been derailed. Let’s hear it for the downbeat!

In the cup: Zambian coffee

The coffee’s just about ready. The coffee du jour is the bottom of the Zambian beans we got at the local cafe. It’s an interesting coffee with notes of bitter chocolate and something berry.

On the docket: Trying to motivate

The problem with writing so close to the beginning of school is that I want to soak up every drop of leisure I have left — and I have less than a week of it. I’m not that enamored of what I’ve started right now, and I have Canva advertising to play with. Ideally, I should get two hours writing today. Or even an hour. And it’s not speaking to me.

Maybe I need motivation.

Or a vacation.