So I know I have not been blogging everyday but I don’t think that’s a habit I can keep up. It is finally spring break and I must say it feels good.
First, I have been completely thrown off by the change in time. I am totally getting old. I have been getting up late and going to sleep early…I feel like I have jet lag. It really doesn’t make any sense. So good that I have the break to get myself together.
I have actually been getting things done. I have an abstract done for a conference (which is not due until the 25th). I have started a conference paper that I will be giving at a conference in the beginning of April. My goal is to finish a draft of the paper and put together a power point by the end of the break. I have begun the paper and I have a writing date tomorrow at 9:30am!
I got some organizing done in my office today. For my class, I would like to do the reading for next week and organize my classes and then do the reading for the week after next and write the lecture. I would like to find some movies to show for the class. But we’ll see about that.
Overall, until now the break actually has been productive. Sometimes I will go through an entire break and not do ANYTHING. So, already the fact that something has gotten done is a triumph!
I have a cold that I cannot seem to shake. I just keep coughing and it won’t stop. Especially at night. I take Nyquil at night so that I can sleep, but I still wake up around 5:30am coughing. Then I may go back to sleep an hour later, to have to wake up at 7am. I have been pretty sleepy during the day then. It felt good though to write last night. I worked for a couple hours and wrote 556 words. I hope to be able to do the same tonight. Every little bit counts right?
I have a friend who is my academic inspiration. She seems so no nonsense about doing her work. She just writes and doesn’t sit and worry about it. Every time I see her she inspires me. She even has a job next year, which are hard to come by these days. But whenever I don’t want to do something because of worry or fear I think about her. She just moves along facing forward.
Today is going to be about grading. I have to finish grading my student’s papers and get caught up with any other grading.
In addition to beginning the new month with anticipation and excitement I’m also going to try to instill to habit of blogging everyday, even if it’s just a little bit. Today I taught my class and it went pretty well. Students got into a spirited discussion that digressed a little from the readings but I was glad to hear them have some thoughts or opinions. And new people spoke who don’t normally speak so that was great.
I need to start and finish grading their papers for Thursday. I’ve actually organized the class on an excel spread sheet which is a good thing. So I feel good about being almost organized. Now I see why teaching takes up so much time and most academics don’t want to do it lol. But I like the subject matter that I’m teaching and it feels good to have my own classroom. We’ll see if this thought continues throughout the 2nd half of the semester.
Yesterday I didn’t get to do any writing because I was prepping for class. So I’m going to try and get that done today.
Added later: I wrote about 556 words on my dissertation tonight.
So I gave this post the title of (kind of) new beginnings because it’s the first of the month. And like the first of the year or the beginning of the week I feel this sense of renewal. I feel like I can slough off the indiscretions of the past and decide from here on out that I will do right. If course like all beginnings things promised will fall by the wayside. But I will persist in this practice and hope for the best.
I am teaching a class this semester. This is my first time teaching my own class. It is both exciting and terrifying at the same time. I am so worried about them and about me. I worry about whether they’re understanding, about whether I am presenting myself with enough authority, about whether I have enough material for class or too little, sigh. And today, I had the minnie crisis of my articles not being copied properly. So I uploaded incomplete copies of the readings. So I had to run around and recopy the articles and reupload them. But to make the situation more difficult, my office is a disaster so I could not find the articles to recopy. I was mad at myself for allowing my office to become such a mess!
So today, I have a to-do list and I’m sticking to it. I’m cleaning my office, getting my class organized, beginning to grade my papers, and prepping for class.
Today is also bad because I have a cold and I woke up at 4am coughing and couldn’t get back to sleep for about an hour. So today I feel tired because my sleep was interrupted. But I will move forward.
While I’m on this productivity streak, I will post how many words I write everyday on my dissertation. The month of march needs to be a busy one!
A Year of Living Academically 