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I was writing something here and a storm blew through, shut down that particular enterprise. On Saturday, I was considering the emergence of the new semester and the wrapping up of the present - that transitional period, the liminal calander entry.
By Monday, the feeling's over. The transitional period is complete, we're on the other side.
The Feeling doesn't have as much to do with what I'm doing as I used to think. Like, yes, I'm still grading stragglers in 102, I'm marking last minute revisions, and it's Finals Week, so I'm *clack clack* typing up my 506 Romantic Poets paper and whatever, and whatever. There's a solid week's worth of work to do, and I'm working on it - but it's the cutting of the threads that does it. Each thing complete is the Last of Its Kind - for this semester, anyhow, and they do not spin themselves into a new section.
I don't really like how semesters work, but they do one wonderful thing in particular, and that is, eventually, they end and take their shit with them.
That sounds a lot angrier than I feel. I just mean that I still feel that the semester system we have may not be the best way to mark academic time - everything feels rushed, and there's a fundimental problem with everything kind of coming due at the same time, all the time. Stress gets intense and, for me, I'm really just learning the lessons I really needed to know about the fundimentals of teaching and grading now, so I'm working inefficiently at grading and records keeping. But, the upside of these rigidly demarcated time periods is that they end, and no matter how much I sweat last week and this week, I don't have to go back to class to teach, I don't have to worry about papers or excuses or anything related to this 102 semester ever again after the grades are in. My focus becomes situated on writing, and only writing, so for the first time in a year, it's just my work.
The problem with summer is that I'll almost certainly be doing the huge bulk from home, and that kind of issue runs into many of the same problems we find in doing one's job from home. It's the same thing, I guess. Discipline is important. We're trying to do a summer writing group with other grads, post-grads, adjuncts, TAs, etc. - like, young academics. This kind of thing doesn't tend to work, but I'd like it to, so I'll try to steer a group into happening.
By Monday, the feeling's over. The transitional period is complete, we're on the other side.
The Feeling doesn't have as much to do with what I'm doing as I used to think. Like, yes, I'm still grading stragglers in 102, I'm marking last minute revisions, and it's Finals Week, so I'm *clack clack* typing up my 506 Romantic Poets paper and whatever, and whatever. There's a solid week's worth of work to do, and I'm working on it - but it's the cutting of the threads that does it. Each thing complete is the Last of Its Kind - for this semester, anyhow, and they do not spin themselves into a new section.
I don't really like how semesters work, but they do one wonderful thing in particular, and that is, eventually, they end and take their shit with them.
That sounds a lot angrier than I feel. I just mean that I still feel that the semester system we have may not be the best way to mark academic time - everything feels rushed, and there's a fundimental problem with everything kind of coming due at the same time, all the time. Stress gets intense and, for me, I'm really just learning the lessons I really needed to know about the fundimentals of teaching and grading now, so I'm working inefficiently at grading and records keeping. But, the upside of these rigidly demarcated time periods is that they end, and no matter how much I sweat last week and this week, I don't have to go back to class to teach, I don't have to worry about papers or excuses or anything related to this 102 semester ever again after the grades are in. My focus becomes situated on writing, and only writing, so for the first time in a year, it's just my work.
The problem with summer is that I'll almost certainly be doing the huge bulk from home, and that kind of issue runs into many of the same problems we find in doing one's job from home. It's the same thing, I guess. Discipline is important. We're trying to do a summer writing group with other grads, post-grads, adjuncts, TAs, etc. - like, young academics. This kind of thing doesn't tend to work, but I'd like it to, so I'll try to steer a group into happening.