Back in the Saddle

So my surgery is over. I stayed one night in the hospital, just to help control the pain and make sure I was strong enough to get home. I have asthma, so I worry about making sure my breathing is consistent and not too painful. I have been mending slowly but each day is a better improvement. The toughest part now is to stick to the very strict diet attached to the recovery. I am only allowed to eat pureed food for the next two weeks and also have to consume 3 protein shakes a day. I feel like I am always preparing, measuring, or eating/drinking. I have to try and keep to a more consistent schedule, and this requires me downing the protein shakes while teaching. Let me tell you that they do not mix. I am not one to drink lots of shakes, so doing this three times a day is becoming problematic. I just have to get over this dislike of eating/ingesting these in front of my students. I have disclosed to them the nature of the surgery and why I have this going on, and they are fascinated by the whole process.

On other news, I am procrastinating from writing a 1000 word paper that is due on Thursday morning. I am just wiped out from my first day back after spring break surgery. I just cant seem to find my motivation to just get it done. I have 6 hours in my office tomorrow to work on it, plus all night tomorrow. I do have some other homework due on Wednesday that has to get done as well. Instead of working on these things, I am writing about it. I feel like this is becoming a broken record with me. I want to know where my motivation went. How can I get my energy and focus back? Anyone have any ideas?

Tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays, St Patrick's Day. I don't say this because it is an excuse to drink, but I am of Irish descent, and it is a day to help people understand Irish culture. I will not be able to partake in my traditional events, I am not allowed to drink alcohol for a year, and I cannot have my Reuben lunch that I traditionally share with a friend. Well I could, but it would have to be pureed and that is just the desecration of the blender. So the only way to help me get into the spirit of the holiday was to look yet again at my photos from my trip to Ireland. The last two I posted were well accepted.

Here is a photo of an area called the Burren, County Clare:

Here are the Dublin steps. This is the old entrance to the city and reportedly the most haunted site in Dublin. Do you see any thing?

An lastly for you all is the Irish version of the dollar store:

Reflections

I am on break this week and anticipating a life-changing surgery on Tuesday. Now that I have been able to clean up a few loose ends I have been reflecting on the last few years of my life and all of the changes that have occurred that led me to where I am today. Almost a year ago, my husband and I went on our honeymoon to Ireland, and there I feel I found some of the most peaceful places to reflect on life. I wish I could go back there now. The country had such a calming effect on me. Here are two of my favorite places that help me focus more on life than on the projects I have to complete. The first is of Ladies' View in the Kilarney National Park, looking down on the Lakes of Kilarney.

The second photo was taken in Glendalough, on the grounds of St. Kevin's monastery. The place was so peaceful and serene that words could not even begin to describe it.

So now as I a mentally preparing myself for surgery, and for the end to this semester, I have tried to find the mental peace that was so readily available to me on my journey through Ireland. Viewing the photos of these places have brought me some peace, hopefully sharing them with you can do the same.

Pet Peeves

So this will be a shorter post, but I am just really being annoyed lately by pretentious people. I mean, I think that I am smart. I have a few pieces of paper that say that I am, but I really cannot stand it when people try to sound smart for no reason.

Could it be that this person has learned a few new words and wants to share them with me in a sentence? Could it be that they are intimidated by my team's recent trivia win? Could it be that being on a college campus they just feel the need to sound more academic?

I am not sure, but it annoys the crap out of me when people try and make themselves sound so self-important. I am not asking that smart people dumb themselves down when talking, but using technical jargon in a relatively casual conversation doesn't impress me.

Resume vs. CV

I have always hated trying to explain what a CV is to people outside of academia. It is not just another way to write a resume. It is a little more than that. The comic below hit it right on the head. For thouse of you yet to have put yours together, you have my sympathies.

Bad, Bad Blogger

I realize that it has been almost 2 months since my last post. This just shows how busy I have been this semester. Partly because I prefer to clear off my DVR some days than sitting and grading papers, and partly because I am just that busy. I have found it very difficult to say no when I am offered jobs on campus.
It is now week 7 of the semester, spring break is right around the corner. On a happy note, both institutions that I work with are off at the same time. I have scheduled to have a medical procedure done over break, so that I can start the second half of the semester without having to take any time off. Everyone seems to be very supportive of this surgery, which is such a relief, and work will not be an issue. I will be having the surgery on Tuesday 10 March, and should be able to work from home Wednesday and Thursday. I am hoping that I feel well enough to come to work on Friday for a little while. I have had a surgery previous to this one and felt pretty much normal within a few days.
Along with this I have to start planing for the next school year. I am debating on renewing my assistantship. The pay is consistent, but more importantly, it covers 4.5 credits a semester. The reason I am thinking about not applying is the headache I had at the start of the previous semester. I really don't want to have to deal with another faculty member who doesn't understand my needs or my schedule. If I get signed on to teach at the other college again, and continue my IT job, that is more than enough money. We survived on less my first year. This does mean that I take out more in loans for my last year. My husband doesn't mind if I do. He says it's up to me. I don't think he even has a full comprehension of my student loan debt, and I don't think that is how he views me being a student. I have 12-18 credits left to take, and should pound out at least 12 next year, leaving one or two classes to complete. I will have 30 in the bag at the end of this year, and I think that I am just getting too old to run around like this. I think that if I had a contract for teaching this fall and an assurance that I could work on more course development next spring, I would drop the assistantship in a heart beat. The monthly check would be missed, but it would be one less thing that I have to take care of. I think that the major crux of this is that I would need to know that I would either be teaching 6 credits again this fall or that I would be assigned as an assistant to the awesome faculty member that I have been working with for 2 years. I know that the latter won't likely happen, but the former is very possible.
On a happy note, I had the Dean of Faculty sit in on one of my classes. Of course he chose the morning section where the students are very quiet and non-participatory. We have been discussing Persepolis. Based on their homework, the students have been enjoying the work. In class they are almost silent. I fretted about what to do in class. I received some great advice about how to get them talking. The class went well, they were talking. The dean thought I rocked it! He told me how much fun he had had in the class, and even told this to other faculty that I work with. I was on such a high all week. Hopefully this translates into a fall contract.

Semester Three

I don't even know where to begin other than to say that I have one week of this semester in the bag. I think that I may have bitten off more than I can chew. For me even to admit that, is a big step. At this time last month my teaching load had dropped from 2 courses to 1 so I was kind of scrambling to find a little work to act as a filler. I have one position on campus that I work 20 hours at, and 10 hour graduate assistantship. I only registered for 6 credits, so I was waffling between added another 3 credits or just taking it a little easy with the one course.

I mentioned the cancellation of this course to one of my supervisors, who then and there offered me a great opportunity to become an online course developer. I would work with a faculty member on campus, take their existing face-to-face course and make it 100% online with the help of all of the university's resources at my disposal. Great! I'll do it. I watched them do this last year with 6 courses and it looked like a great opportunity. On top of all of this, I could work on a course that I have a good comprehension of, Western Civ. Things are really looking up. On top of this, the course developer position pay is more than the pay for the course that got dropped from my teaching load. Great, I will be ahead of the monetary game this semester.

So then last Friday rolls around, and my supervisor for the course development comes to me and offers me a second course to develop. Sweet! And it is another history course, though this time not in an area I am familiar with, Africa, but one that looks to be very interesting. At this point all I can see is dollar signs flashing and a few bills that I have showing a $0 balance. Things really seem to be looking up for me.

So I go into the weekend happy, but a little busy, trying to finish prepping as much as I can for the class that I am teaching. I also wanted to give the house a thorough cleaning and take down the Christmas decorations. The domestic goddess in me goes on hiatus when the semester starts and won't return for a few months. On Saturday morning, as I am taking lights off the tree, I get a phone call from the college that I teach at. It is the Dean of Faculty. He tells me that the section I had dropped was reopened the night before due to enrollment being too large in another section. How would you like to have this course back on you teaching assignment? Silly me, thinking only about the money that I would be making, said yes. Now, I would be teaching a course that I just finished teaching two sections of last semester. I can very easily prep for the course. But it does require me to do all of the grading.

So now I am taking 6 credits, teaching 6 credits, developing 6 credits, working 10 hours a week as a graduate assistant, and 20 hours a week in IT. This really isn't too different from last semester, but it just feels overwhelming. This on top of the idea that in both of my classes I am the only doc student, so the professor for each has assigned me an extra paper. I expected that, but it still doesn't help matters. On the bright side, this semester I only have one faculty member that I am working for as a graduate assistant.

Say It Isn't So...

So, back to reality. After two weeks of doing nothing related to my own academic career other than dealing with all of those loose pieces of paper floating in folders and my saddle bag (my backpack), it is time to get back into school mode. Unfortunately this is not something that I can be eased back into. I have back to back meetings basically for the rest of this week while I also need to prepare the course that I am teaching this spring. I have never taught the course before and over the break two of the four books were changed out. Unfortunately they dropped Maus, which I love teaching. It was replaced by another graphic novel that I enjoy, Persepolis, but I have not taught that one before. So here I am, less than a week away from the start of the semester and I am trying to throw together a course calendar. The other works that we will be tackling are Night, An Ordinary Man, and a few Greek tragedies that I haven't read since high school. If you have any insights, they are welcome. Needless to say, teaching this course will make this an interesting semester. My own classes also start next week as well. I am looking forward to having two faculty members that I have not had in years. I have one education course and one history course, hopefully allowing me to have more of a balance in my mental paradigms.

Again my love of PhD Comics cannot be captured in mere words, but below I have a comic that sums up yesterday: