End of Week Report

Well, I guess I've survived my first week back at grad school. All in all, it's not been a bad week.

I like the classes I'm teaching. I didn't sleep at all Monday night because I was so nervous. When I woke up, I even noticed that my arm was shaking from nerves. After about forty minutes of prayer and listening to a couple of Jennifer Knapp songs (a form of prayer in itself), I lost all of that tension, and the fears that were overwhelming me at the moment totally subsided. I got up, dressed, went to school, and taught, and it was all just fine.

I did have a few small problems. One of my classes wouldn't believe that I was really their professor. What happened was that when I showed up to the room, the door was shut, and I assumed that the previous class was still in there. I waited in the hall with my students a few moments before finally unlocking the door. When I did that, they were shocked that one of the guys that looked just like them and that had been standing around with them in the hall had the keys. When we got in the room, I started writing on the board, and they all sat down. But when I began to talk, one of the guys in the back raised his hand and asked, incredulously, if I were really their professor. I think they had seen that trick done in the movies. I explained to them that, yes, I was their professor, even if I was an idiot. And I told them that being quite out of touch with the world around them was a prerequisite for teaching any college class. And told told that student who asked that question that he was going to fail.

After that, I was pretty harsh on the class, I guess to maintain my authority position that had nearly been lost. I scared them pretty well, but I think that'll help them. It was surprisingly fun, too.

The classes I'm taking also seem fine, though I don't feel much compulsion to write about them.

This is going to be an amazingly busy semester. I haven't had a free moment. It's either going to class, or doing homework, or talking to students in office hours, or answering emails, or writing lesson plans, or grading, or teaching at every moment. I'm going to be back on my 80-90 hour work-week schedule pretty soon. That sort of schedule scared me a lot last year when I saw it coming at the end of the semester. Now, it starts at the beginning of the semester, but I feel used to it. It'll all be fine.