Update

I’m back from my adventure in New York. I still feel like I could use some sleep.

I only have two weeks until classes start again. Where did the time go?

Here’s hoping I feel like writing again before I run out of time.

Daily writing prompt

Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

Living in my home town was a particular sort of hell. I had only one friend, and we didn’t have much in common. I was no longer being bullied (much) in high school, but it was still a lonely, aggravating time.

I attended the University of Illinois for 11 years — four years of undergraduate and seven of graduate school. It took me a couple more years to get out of graduate school because of a pesky car accident in the middle of the process, but I didn’t mind. My college years were some of the best of my life.

My undergraduate years were the years of discovering myself, of finding out there were others like me out there. I was a quirky person with lots of enthusiasm and nerd credentials. I did not do well in a small town high school where I was the only one like me, but in my undergrad I discovered a D&D group I fit in with. I found other friends on the PLATO computer system. I started having actual escapades with my newfound friends.

Graduate school was when I came into my own. I discovered a peer group of people, an eclectic bunch, who spent every Saturday night together watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and hanging out. We celebrated holidays like May Day in medieval costume with probably the only portable May pole in the world. We were quirky as heck and I loved it. We were close enough that sometimes we got into arguments with each other, but that was good. It felt good to have a bunch of people I felt close to.

When I left to go to my first faculty job in upstate New York, I knew I would miss these people terribly. We had a packing and pizza party to commemorate our leaving (I was married at the time) and a couple of us drove toward New York the next day.

In New York, I was 900 miles away from my people. I survived, though, with the help of some new friends I made. I spent five years out there, making a new world for myself. Without those years in Champaign-Urbana, however, I would never have known how to.

My Strange, Snowy, Cold Semester So Far

This has been the strangest first week of the semester, and the strangeness is extending into week 2.

A little background: I go on campus Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays during Spring semester. Monday has office hours and meetings; Tuesdays and Thursdays are when I teach and hold office hours again. (Another class is online and yet another conducted over email and meetings as it is the internship class).

The days I don’t go into work allow me to work on class plans, research, and internship site visits (which won’t happen for a few weeks). They allow me to do this, in addition, without dressing up for work (except for those internship visits.) I work, but I don’t teach. It’s a lot more relaxed.

As I mentioned last week, the university closed because of an energetic snowfall dumping 7 inches of snow over a 12-hour period. With students coming in from the countryside and plows unable to keep up with snow and wind, we canceled school for Tuesday. My first day of class was Thursday.

Four days at home followed this because Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and then I would be back to teach Tuesday. Except that my university is cancelling classes on Tuesday because of dangerous windchills, making my next day in to teach on Thursday again.

It feels strange having this much time outside of office, with the flexibility of work it creates. It’s equally strange not having face time with my students. I’m going to have to work on how to get the students caught up with class topics. But it’s not as strange as teaching under COVID, where I taught a semester online with no face time with the students.

So here’s to another couple days of working while playing classical music, drinking hot chocolate, and with bunny slippers on!

First Week of Classes

Another Year Begun

The beginning of the school year is special, even at the college level, a shiny new time. We don’t have beginning of school pictures, but we have our first days where students find their new classrooms (sometimes unsuccessfully) and check their websites for class material and yes, even party.

The motif among the students seems to be 80’s reunion. I’m seeing a lot of colorful hair — a lot. I see some funky updos among the women. I see some skateboards. I’m waiting for the underwear outside the long-sleeved clothes.

There’s a lot of politeness in the hallways and in the classes. If the students are stressed (which they are) they’re responding with kindness.

My classes

This year seems to be a good one for my classes. I’ve had a good amount of class participation — sharp, insightful class participation. This gives me hope for the semester.

I need to do my share by structuring class so that there’s a lot of interaction and connection. I’m looking at course material to see what I can do to promote that.

I’m hoping that these classes become rich and memorable (and informative).

Thus are the shiny new goals of the new school year.

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.

I guess I’m busy.

I ordered eight paperback copies of The Kringle Conspiracy to sell after my book signing party requested copies. And do you know what? I lost the list! AAAAAAAGH someone threw out the piece of paper I’d written them on. I can’t believe it!

So now I’m asking my Facebook friends again who ordered copies. I think I’ve found most of them anyhow. Just missing two or three.

I feel like such a flake sometimes! Maybe most of the time, but with all the stuff going on (teaching, grading, writing, rewriting, emotional meltdown over Trump’s scary refusal to concede the election.) maybe I can’t be blamed for being a bit flaky.

What is left to do before January 1st:

Grade Case Management final case files
Grade exams in Case Management and People Money and Psych (in a couple weeks)
Meet with classes Monday via Zoom
Edit (first round) Kringle in the Night
Set up my pitches for PitMad December 3
Narrate 8 presentations for Personal Adjustment (i.e. Positive Psychology)
Finish setting up Personal Adjustment, Case Management, and People Money and Psych for spring classes
Get those books out
Rest (I don’t do that very well)

I guess I am busy. Busy is not necessarily a good thing if it stands in the way of accomplishment. Perhaps I need to learn to do things more efficiently. If I had time, I’d study that.

But today is Sunday, and I’ve finished grading a major assignment. Now to edit another chapter of Kringle. Ahh…

Needing a little push

I’m rethinking my relationship with being a writer.

Is getting published worth it? I’m contemplating not doing #PitMad (a Twitter manuscript pitching contest) on the 3rd of September. It’s hardly anything to set up, but I’m so tired of no nibbles. I’m just tired of trying.

This may be part of a general depressive trend. There’s so much pressing down on me, most of it having to do with going back to work under COVID. There’s nothing I can do except wear that mask, sanitize surfaces, and pray.

This is not the way I want to be. I want to be productive. I want to accomplish something. I want to get published, if only I could figure out how to do that.

What I can do is just keep doing — keep writing, keep trying to publish, meet with my classes whether in person or online, and have as good a semester as I can manage. Because if I don’t do things, they certainly won’t happen.

I just need a push to get me going.