My First Day

My first day of class was this week.  I am happy to say it went well.  I made a few mistakes--you know, unnoticed typos on syllabi--but overall, it went well.  I even managed to get my students talking, which was exciting.  I enjoy teaching, and I'm happy in the classroom.  It felt good to get back to doing something I love.  I didn't, however, get home until 7 pm (I teach a late afternoon class), which is the boys' bedtime.  I got about 15 minutes with my children in a 20 hour period, which was hard.  They didn't seem to mind, but I did.  Given my teaching schedule there isn't much I can do about that.  I have, however, already requested a different schedule for next year.  I can--and will--be a team player and will happily teach the occasional late-afternoon or evening class, but I won't do it when my kids are this little.  I just won't.  People can judge me all they want to, as I'm sure they will, but I won't do it.

Worth Sharing

I'm rereading parts of The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett in preparation for a class I'll teach later today.  Here is a quotation worth sharing: "We don't want to carry no men folks havin' to be considered every minute an' takin' up all our time."  I love Jewett.

I'm hanging on

I have lots and lots I want to write about now that my first week as an official "Assistant Professor" is almost over.  For now I will just say, I'm hanging on, barely.

The start of the semester

*This post is in response, at least in part, to some of the things my friend Anastasia has been blogging about.

Classes start next week.  I'm feeling the typical mixture of dread and excitement that I feel at the start of every new academic year.  I'm dreading the start of the term because, yes, it does mean the return of the students.  This means a lot more traffic around CU Land, which inevitably means that, daily, I will narrowly avoid running over one student who can't be bothered to look both ways before crossing the street or to obey the cross walk signals.  I'm also dreading it because it means the end of the uninterrupted writing time I've enjoyed for at least 2 hours every day. 

I am excited about teaching though because, not unlike Anastasia, I actually like my students.  Yes, they annoy me, and I complain about them.  But I really enjoy teaching.  I do what I do because of the teaching, not because of the research (I do enjoy the research, don't get me wrong, but teaching energizes me in a way research doesn't).  So while I will complain quite loudly about how the return of students affects almost every aspect of life in CU Land, I am quite happy to have them returning to my classroom.

My life

Here is my professional life right now: teach, grade, teach, send out job materials, revise letters, think about writing, send out more job materials, and teach some more.

Here is my personal life: chase Bear and Wild Man, try to find time for me and Archer, and try not to think about work when I'm home.  I'm not so successful at the latter.

Random Updates

The fall semester started yesterday, so I've been preoccupied by all things teaching.  Here are some updates from my life.

• I have a TA for the first time ever.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  Obviously I'm excited not to grade papers for this course, but in some ways it also seems like a bit of a hassle to manage someone else's grading.  TA seems competent enough, so I'm hoping it all works out.
• I finally finished the reading list for the course that I have no business teaching.  I added a unit on something that I find really interesting, and now, I'm rather excited about teaching the class.  Let's keep that one a secret, yes?
• Archer and I have a meeting with the VP of Faculty Recruitment and Retention on Thursday.  She is meant to be our advocate at CU, and her primary purpose is to keep faculty here. We're hoping she can give us some tips on securing me a more permanent position.  As a bonus, her daughter is in Wild Man's day care and JK classes, and her son was in Bear's daycare class.  We've gotten to know her a little bit that way, so maybe that will make a difference.  Regardless of our personal connection, she is very nice and seems very concerned about some things we've been told by various administrators.
• The job list in my field comes out on Thursday, so I've been communicating with people re: letters, essays, etc.  None of this is fun, at all.
• My former adviser has taken an administrative position at Southwest College, and now she is impossible to get a hold of.  I've sent her two emails in the last week, and I haven't heard from her.  I may have to resort to messaging her on Facebook.
• Pita, Archer's sister, was in a major car accident yesterday afternoon, and we were the last to find out.  She apparently ran into the back of a car on the interstate, prompting her to lose control of her truck, and was then hit by at least 2 other vehicles.  She flipped her truck several times, and she had to be removed from the car (it was upside down) by firefighters.  We only found out b/c Archer called his mom on her cell phone to ask a quick question.  Yetta was so hysterical that it was impossible to get any info out of her.  Archer's brother called us later in the evening, and I answered the phone.  I said, "So can we get some news from someone who isn't hysterical?"  He said, "Do you want the truth, or do you want what is circulating on the church prayer line?"  I had to crack up.  He then said, "No matter what Mom tells you, Pita wasn't airlifted to the hospital, and all things considering she has fairly minor injuries.  There is no reason for Archer to come home."
• We've since learned that Pita has a broken wrist (which required surgery last night; she was out in under an hour), 2 broken ribs (although it may be just one; R, Archer's brother, says one, while Yetta says 2), and a large cut on her arm (this actually seems to be the most serious as it is so large that the doctor doesn't want to stitch it up; he has put a wet bandage on it to let it heal from the inside out).  The truck is total, and it seems likely that Pita was on her cell phone immediately before the crash.  
• Bottom line: given the severity of the crash, she's lucky to be alive, and that is what we're focusing on in our house.
• Archer is pissed at his mother, however, b/c he has been the last to receive information.  When family friends started posting updates about Pita on Facebook last night--updates that neither he nor R had received--he lost his temper.
• Archer has been invited to give a talk at a big research university in the states by some bigwigs in his field.  He goes mid-week next month, which means, given my teaching schedule, we need someone to help out for a few days.  Our usual babysitter, who is also Bear's day care teacher, goes out on maternity leave next week, so we can't ask her as her baby is due the week before Archer leaves.  My sister can't come because of her work schedule, and it is too much to ask any of our friends, although our dear neighbors would help in a minute.  So I asked my mom if she could come help and visit for a week.  The caveat: I need her to pick Wild Man up at JK one afternoon, which requires that she drive (well, that, or that she hangs out in Archer's office all day long and then walks over to pick up Wild Man.  She would then have to go get Bear at daycare and then walk them both to my office so I could drive us all home after I'm done teaching.).  My mom absolutely refuses to drive in any city except the one she lives in.  She actually may not come because of this.  Seriously.  I'm trying to respect my mom's fears about getting lost, which do seem to be genuine, and to understand how those fears are amped by her bi-polar.  If you can't tell from my tone, I'm having a hard time.  If she doesn't come, I'll have to ask Yetta, who will happily drive, but she won't be able to get the boys dinner, a bath, and to bed when I'm teaching my night class.  My mom will be able to do those things easily, but she won't drive.  There are days when I wonder whose parents are less annoying, mine or Archer's.  And yes, I realize I'm being uncharitable.
• I need to make an appointment with my doctor to discuss long term birth control options.  A third child is increasingly unlikely, but Archer informed me that he isn't ready to have a vasectomy just yet.  I'm tired of being on the pill, so I'm going to talk to my doctor about an IUD.  I've done some research and even considered getting one after Wild Man stopped nursing, but as we knew were likely to have a second child sooner rather than later, I didn't get one.  I'm feeling rather ambivalent about this, mainly because I'm tired of being responsible for birth control, but we'll see what we see.
• That's it for now, although I could probably write for hours. 

A meltdown and another confession

After my last post, I had a major meltdown.  I was working in Archer's office that day as I needed to be on campus for various meetings, and I literally sobbed.  Archer was working as well, and he sat next to me and rubbed my back.  He was great.  He didn't try to get me to calm down, which is rare for him.  He just let me cry, which I needed to do.  Once I stopped crying I told him that I am not happy at CU.  This is a hard thing for me to say to him or even to write here, within the relative safety of my blog.  It's hard for lots of reasons, but mainly because I know how happy he is professionally and because I know how tough the academic job market is right now.  Even though my position isn't tenure-track, I do have a one-year contract with each department I work for, so I have more job security than many people adjuncting.  Admitting I'm unhappy makes me feel a little ungrateful.  But I digress.

Archer asked if I could explain why I'm unhappy.  Here are a few reasons:

• I'm exhausted by inventing and teaching new courses every term, especially courses I'm not really qualified to teach.  For example, this term let's say I'm teaching a course in Jerk Studies.  See, I'm not professional in Jerk Studies.  Yes, I can teach Intro to Jerk Studies without a problem, and I can (and do) teach Professional Jerk Studies with a bit of prep.  I'm teaching this course though b/c someone in the writing department asked Dr. Nice Guy, the former chair of Archer's department, if I could teach this, given my interdisciplinary interest in books and the design of jerky spaces.  I said, "Um, well, no, not really.  But I could if I had to."  For me, "had to" meant "Sure, I can teach it if I must to ensure some sort of job security, but teaching it won't happen without a lot of stress on my part."  Dr. Nice Guy talked to Dr. Red (so named because of her lovely red hair), who asked me to write a course description.  I did, and voila.  Now I'm teaching this course.  I don't want to teach it.  At all.  It has been made very clear to me, however, that this is the course that could get me noticed by the powers that be.  Great!  I'll get noticed for doing something I am not qualified to do.  How wonderful for me!
• I am tired of feeling like I don't belong.  I'm tired of being on the fringes of 3 departments.  
• I am tired of feeling like I'm flying by the seat of my pants in the classroom.  I recognize that I am apparently good at teaching not totally prepared.  I am good at engaging students and getting them to participate, but I'm tired of working all day long to prep and then feeling like I still have no idea what I'm talking about.

After I explained all of these things to Archer, I told him that after this year, if we don't have any other job options and we are still at CU, I want to make some changes.  I will continue to teach in all 3 departments, so long as they will offer me positions.  I will not, however, design or accept any more courses that I am not interested in or that I am not qualified to teach.  It is just too stressful.  If that means that I only teach two courses a term, that's fine.  I would much rather take Bear out of full-time childcare and keep him home with me 2 or 3 days a week than go through the stress of teaching something I don't want and not qualified to teach.  If I only teach 2 courses a term and only put Bear in school 2 or 3 days a week, that does mean I will lose all of the time I currently have to get my own research and writing done.  But it will also mean that I'm a happier person, which, quite frankly, is more important to me. 

Here's the thing: I love teaching.  I love it.  I love everything about it.  When I'm in the classroom talking with students about something that excites me, I'm happy with my job.  When I'm writing, as much as I struggle to do it, I'm happy.  When I'm at a conference either giving or hearing a paper, I'm happy.  I love what I do.  I don't love what I do when I feel like I'm teaching something I shouldn't be.  Right now, I feel like a fraud.  I should not be teaching this class.  I will only be able to pull it off because the students don't know any better and, clearly, neither does the administration. 

I realize on some level that I'm being a whiny little brat.  I do know I'm lucky to have a job, but how lucky am I if I'm not completely happy with the job I have?

Vacation

We have returned from a lovely vacation in which we visited our dear friends.  Unfortunately we returned to a bit of a mess as our water heater died while we were away.  I'm very thankful for good neighbors and fast repair men.  The  water heater has already been replaced at no cost to us due to the extended warranty.  Now I try to clean the house and get back into the writing/prepping groove.

Another Job Update

Yesterday I spent the bulk of the day working out my teaching schedule. It seems I was teaching too much. At CU, which is unionized, there are limitations to how many courses a "part-time" person can teach. In theory these rules are meant to protect part-time employees from being taken advantage of; in reality, it seems to cause part-time people stress as these people often need to teach more courses in order to make a living.

With the courses I taught this summer and the courses I was asked to teach over the regular academic year, I was teaching 2 more courses than I was permitted. Of course, the system here is really confusing, so I didn't realize this until someone pointed it out to me. I then spoke with one of the department heads, and she offered to write the dean to ask permission for me to receive an overload. She did this, in part, because I'm teaching a special topics course for her department, and she didn't want me to turn that course down. Dr. Writing and I spoke through email, and I then emailed the head of the English department, Dr. Interested (I'm calling him this because he's shown a lot of interest in my work). I asked him for his advice as he is the only department head who has an understanding of my research and who has read and commented on my CV for me. I told him that if I was going to turn down any courses I would turn down one in his department as it is a course that I haven't taught before and uses a standard syllabus that includes 4 books I've never even read before (this is the online course; and it focuses on British lit. Oh, and right, I'm an Americanist.). He was really, really helpful. He told me point blank that he knew of other people who could teach the course, so I shouldn't feel bad about turning the course down. He then went on to say that my CV is really strong in terms of my teaching, and that if a position were to become available in my area (which is a distinct possibility in the next year or so), he can make a strong case for me given my teaching experience. What I am lacking is research. He urged me to do what was best for me so that I could focus on my research, something Dr. Writing said in a much less direct way. So after a long talk with C and a bit of tears (I really, really didn't want to turn down an English course), I finally decided to turn down that course. So now instead of teaching a 4-4 load, I will be teaching 3-3. I will have only 1 new prep in the fall, and the winter will all be repeats. Theoretically this will give me some time to work on job materials and to research. I'm still feeling a bit conflicted about all of this, but I think it was the right decision.

I am still teaching 1 more course than I should, but Dr. Writing has spoken with the dean and seems to think that I will be approved for an overload. She needs me to teach these courses, so I'm hopeful I will get approval. I'm also hopeful that the dean will take notice of how much I'm teaching and begin to wonder if it isn't more effective to have me on staff in a more permanent way. But I'm also doubtful that will happen any time soon.

Job updates

While we were away I got my teaching offers in the mail. It seems I will be considered a full-time lecturer at CU for the 2010-2011 school year. This means I will be teaching a 4-4 load. I need to contact my rep in HR to find out what benefits, if any, this entitles me to. I have mixed feelings on this. The money is nice, and we will be able to save a significant portion each month, which means I may not have to teach so much next summer. It will be really time consuming, however, and I'm not looking forward to another year in which I have very little time to do my own work. I'm also not looking forward to another year on the job market in which I don't have much time to think about applications before I send them out. To that end, I'm going to spend the next several weeks getting course stuff, job letters, and writing samples organized. I also need to finish up an article I've been working on for months and get it out. I need to have that on my CV.

In other news, I will be "team teaching" Intro to Women's Studies this year. I put team teaching in quotations because this means that I will divide the course in half with another, tenure-track prof, who will be getting her term off without teaching in the spring. We've spent the past few weeks organizing the class, and it has been a huge hassle. Why? Because this is her service course, which means she teaches it all the time. She's very committed to the course, which I totally get. She's taught it a lot, and she knows what works. She wants to stick to that formula, which is cool. Except it isn't. Having just taught this course over the summer and having spoken to a lot of students about it, I think there are some fundamental problems in the way the course is designed. I think it is entirely too theoretical for an intro course (I don't think freshman are equipped to read Irigary, Butler, Spivak, or Lacquer), and I think there is a strong argument to be made for making the course a true intro class and using an actual women's studies textbook rather than a collection of readings. We fundamentally disagree, and since I am only the "part-time" person, I am the one having to give in. On some level, I don't feel like it is worth the fight, largely because I'm not tenure track, but I really think she's designed the course she wants to teach rather than the course that is best for the students. Before we left to visit family I sat down and compiled a list of readings that I wanted to include. I just got an email with the list she decided on; there are only 4 or 5 of the readings I wanted to include on the list. Oh, and she will teach all of those readings. This woman is also very difficult to communicate with. She doesn't proofread her emails and ends questions with multiple questions marks, which I find so incredibly annoying. I'm trying to remember this is something to put on my CV, but I think she and I will likely exchange words before it is all over with.

Random Updates

• I'm in day 2 of week 2 of summer school. We're making it. The nights are tough, frankly. Bear is still nursing, and since he is refusing all bottles during the day, he is nursing a lot a night. A lot. This month I was supposed to be working on night weaning him, but honestly, I don't have the energy. I know that this will make night weaning all that much harder when I start as he'll be a year old when summer school is done, but whatever.
  
• I had forgotten how much I love teaching American literature. I haven't taught a survey course since we left Southwest College Town, and I'm loving it. I'm slowly starting to feel inspired again. While I was teaching Thoreau last week, I even had an epiphany for revising one of my dissertation chapters into an article. That felt good. I'm hoping I can hang on to the inspiration until summer school is over and get to work on that article finally.
• Two of our best friends and their glorious children (including my goddaughter) are coming to visit this weekend, and I am so, so excited.
• I need to edit a 70 page dissertation chapter down to an 8 page paper to present at a conference at the end of the month. Sure, I can do that.
• My kitchen is under construction again. We finally decided on and ordered countertops. C is taking this week off from all academic work and is scraping ugly, ugly tiles off the walls, painting the walls a lovely butter yellow color, and making a mess in general. The countertops will be delivered on Friday, and they will be installed sometime next week. Yes, you're reading correctly. I won the battle to have them professionally installed!
  
• My Women's Studies class is going ok. It is an intro class, which I've never taught before, and teaching it in the summer is intense. I'm not used to lecturing so much, and I'm also a bit uncomfortable with the tendency of students to share really personal things. I'm not sure I'm cut out to teach Women's Studies, especially at the intro level, but we'll see.
• Yesterday when I got home at 7:00 pm, Bear started saying "Mama, mama, mama," even before I walked up the stairs. He pushed his ways out of C's arms and tried to crawl to me. Wild Man jumped up from the couch and said, "Mommy, you're home! We missed you!" That made my whole day.
  

One week down

I survived the first week of summer school, and so did my family. Wild Man was a bit of a handful yesterday though, and part of me wonders if he was responding to my absence in the evenings. He tested every single boundary he could and spent a lot of time sitting on the bottom of the stairs thinking about why he was being so sassy yesterday evening. So far today has been better. C is off with some friends for the day, and I took Bear and Wild Man to a playdate with some good friends. My friend and I drank coffee and talked while the kids played. I needed it as much as the boys did. Now they are napping and I'm getting ready to map out the week. I hope to have a few things accomplished before the craziness starts all over again on Monday.

An update

The first two days of the semester are over, and they've gone fairly well. Here's the run down.

• Bear is slowly getting back to himself. Last night was rough though. He was up a lot. He seems to be cutting every single tooth on top of having strep throat. I think C and I each managed about 5 hours of sleep each.
  
• Somehow I still managed to lecture on Puritans and Mary Wollstonecraft--in two separate classes.
• Wild Man pushed one of his classmates down today, and the little boy cut his head. Last week Wild Man got kicked in the face. I'm getting a little frustrated by the explanation, "The boys in Wild Man's class (Wild Man included) are very energetic and rowdy." Needless to say, C and I have an appointment with the director of the school to see if we can get a better understanding of what is going on. C doesn't think the teachers are firm enough, and I tend to agree. I'm more than a bit bothered by the fact that Wild Man intentionally hurt another child though. C made him tell me, and Wild Man was in tears before he told me. Oddly enough, he was more upset knowing I would be disappointed in his behavior.
  
• Tomorrow I get to teach Virginia Woolf and slave narratives. Here's hoping the rest of the week goes smoothly.
  

A great start

Summer school starts at CU today, so C is, once again, the primary caregiver again. Because of my schedule (I teach from 4:30 till 6:30) he will pick the boys up from school, give them dinner, and get them ready for bed on his own. I'll get home just in time to help put them to bed. This will be the norm for 6 weeks. I'm not feeling great about this schedule as I also teach a class from 11 to 1. I feel like I won't see my family during the week for 6 weeks. It makes me feel so blech that I had a good cry about it on Saturday night, which was supposed to be our date night. It was really romantic, let me tell you.

I am feeling very conflicted about my career and motherhood lately, and given my most recent post about my jealousy over C's recent career success, I'm feeling more than a bit like a hypocrite. I'm sure I'll be blogging about this in the next few weeks, when I have time that is.

For now, I'm trying to finish prepping for the first day of class and waiting to hear from C about Bear's doctor's appointment. Bear's been running a fever since Saturday night and is so crabby that I'm beginning to think someone kidnapped my laid back baby and replaced him with an evil clone.

*I just got a call from C. The doctor thinks Bear has strep throat, so C's off to the drugstore to get a script for antibiotics filled. I hope he starts feeling better soon.

Summer Courses, Summer Pay

I am teaching during what CU calls Summer Intersession. From May 10th till June 18th I will be teaching 2 full year courses. That means I have about 6 weeks (or approximately 25 classes as we will meet 4 days a week) to present material that I would normally have 28 weeks (or approximately 56 classes as these classes meet twice a week) to present. One of the classes in an American lit class which I have taught before elsewhere, so I'm not too stressed out about it. The other is an Intro to Women's Studies course which I've never taught and I am a somewhat nervous about (I've been reminded repeatedly that this is the course that convinces a lot of students to become Women's Studies majors; thus, I feel like I'm being tested a bit.). The Winter term ended last week, and although I have a lot of grading to do in the next week or so, I now have about 5 weeks to focus on getting the courses together.

I've been thinking for sometime, however, that I'm going to be doing a lot of work in the next 12 weeks or so for not a whole lot of money. I say that knowing full well what I'm paid as a "part-time" instructor is much more than most, if not all, of my friends working as "part-time" instructors in the states. So I was more than a bit surprised to open my contract today to learn that I get paid for the course, not for the term. The pay for a full-year (two semesters) course is twice the pay for a half-year (one semester) course, but being an American and being accustomed to the way things are done at American universities, I assumed my pay was and is based on the semester rather than the course. Thus, I assumed I was paid for the number of courses I teach in a given term, regardless whether I'm teaching what are deemed full-year or half-year courses. With the summer courses, I assumed I would only be paid for one term since I'm technically only teaching for one term,even though the courses are actually full-year courses. Well, in fact, it turns out that CU pays based on the course, not the term. This means that for the months of May and June I will receive the same amount I was paid for teaching my full-year English course from September 1 to April 30. When I realized this, I literally almost fell on the floor. I immediately called C, and he actually spit out the coffee he was drinking. The summer just got a little brighter for us, at least economically.

Teaching

I just want to write that I totally love my English class. Given the structure of CU, I've been teaching the same class since September, so I've really gotten to know these students. And these are some bright, considerate, thinking individuals. I was uncertain about teaching a year long course, but now I love it. I think the method has a lot of pedagogical merit, and I can't wait to teach another one.

A lazy Monday

C pointed out to me that we really need to be more organized on Mondays or else neither one of us will ever be prepared to teach on Tuesdays. This is the second Monday of the term, and it has been rather lazy. As I pointed out to him, I'm having a hard time caring. Here's what I've done today.

• Woke up with Bear at 6. C actually got up with us for a change which means we had an organized morning.
• Took Wild Man to school while C got Bear to take a nap.
• Reread the first chapter of Borderlands while nursing Bear.
  
• Took Bear to Waterbabies. (So I know that Mondays isn't the best time for a Waterbabies class, but whatever. I wanted to do it at a time when we could focus all of our attention on Bear. Next week, Wild Man starts a pre-school dance class, and we've already decided that only one of us will take him so he gets some uninterrupted Mommy or Daddy time.)
• Had lunch.
• Reread the second chapter of Borderlands while nursing Bear, who then fell asleep, enabling both C and I to work for about an hour.
• Downloaded a recipe for dinner (which I write about if it turns out like I'm hoping it will).

Not bad. I still have some prep to do for tomorrow, but since I've taught Borderlands before, I'm not too worried. My point is that I want to enjoy my time with Bear since I feel like I've had so little of it devoted completely to him. Oh, and I refuse to feel guilty for it.

Blehh

I'm completing the last of my syllabi while C works on the kitchen and Bear naps. I'm still feeling rather "Blehh" about going back to teaching, but I'll deal. I'm trying to work out office hours so that I'll be away from home the minimum amount of time, but right now it's looking like I'll be gone Mondays and Fridays from about 8:15 until 12:45 or 1:00. Tuesdays I'll leave the house around 8:45 and be home around 1:00. Thursdays I'll go in later, around 9:30, but I won't be home until at least 5:00. Wednesdays I'm not planning to go in at all, except for the occasional meeting. I'm trying to squeeze in office hours on the days I'll be on campus, but I know I'll have to be there longer some days. I'm feeling a bit sick to my stomach by all of this, but there isn't much I can do. I have to teach. I have to stay visible in order to stay in the good graces of the powers that be if we're going to make a case for partner placement this year, which is the ultimate goal. Oh, and on top of all this teaching, I have to work on job materials and revise a chapter to submit for publication. Blehh.

Job update

I got word yesterday that I will, in fact, be teaching a full year course for the English Department this coming year. That means I will be gainfully employed for both the fall and spring semesters next year. This is a big relief, financially. But more to the point, I'm thrilled to be teaching for the English Department at CU. I feel like this is a much better department fit for me, and now I can begin getting to know the people in the department. This is the department I'd prefer to be hired in to if we're able to negotiate a tenure-track job for me. And bonus: I get to teach as Dr. M for the first time ever!!

Bonus!

Apparently there is a bonus to getting a doctorate in English, especially when your dissertation focuses on gender issues. Thus far, I've applied for part-time teaching in 3 departments at CU: English, Women's Studies (applying is a formality; I know I'll be teaching one course in the fall), and Writing.

That makes me feel better about my prospects for employment next year.