Monday, November 23, 2009

Chaos

That single word describes my life this past semester. That and guilt. I've felt a lot of guilt about various things this semester. Suffice to say, teaching 3 classes while having an infant and a pre-schooler (oh, and a house and a husband) has been much more difficult than I would have ever imagined. I was thinking this morning (at 5:45 when Bear woke up for the day) that I've somehow managed to go a lot accomplished.
  • I've sent out 34 job applications, and I have about 6 more to send out in the next 3 weeks.
  • I've graded, on average, 40 papers a week.
  • I've prepped lessons for 3 classes.
  • I've written paper prompts, quizzes, and exams for 3 classes.
  • I've managed to keep the house reasonably clean with lots of help from C.
  • I've managed to continue nursing Bear, although I've logged in a lot of time at my breast pump (although I haven't written about it, this has been a major worry of mine).
  • C and I have managed to keep both Bear and Wild Man from getting sick the entire semester, aside from a minor eye infection that Bear had in October.
  • I attended a major conference in my field.
  • I've kept up with office hours.
  • C and I have managed to cook relatively nutritious dinners 5 nights out of 7.
  • We've actually attended a few social events, and while C's family was here, we even managed to go out to lunch just the two of us.
When I see that all in writing, I know why I'm tired. The semester ends on the 8th, and I am so looking forward to a break, albeit a short one, as the Winter term starts on January 4th. I plan to spend one whole day in my pajamas just hanging out with my guys.

2 comments:

Unknown said...
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Lilian said...

I deleted the previous comment because I was logged in with one of my husband's email accounts, here it is:

WOW, that's impressive! Talk about balancing your life on both spheres!

I'm really amazed at how much you accomplished this semester. It goes out to demonstrate that you could definitely handle a TT job, were you to receive an offer from one of your applications. And next year, the boys will be older, so hopefully you'd feel less guilty!