I’m tired. It’s the sort of tired it might take several long days and nights of sleep to overcome. It may be that I am reaching the end of the ability to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning and get up the next day and feel relatively normal. I wonder if that’s a product of getting older. I think of it that way. Maybe that’s common, I’m getting too old for this… Though I wonder if it’s something else. I’m not getting enough vitamin C for this … or I need more vegetables … or I can’t do this at sea level …
Anything but the amount of sleep I get and being human, I guess. But now, I am convinced, this will get a bit better. That’s probably foolish, but it feels true.
Today was the first day of class. My lovely bride has one class on Tuesdays and I have two. I drove her to one side of campus and dropped her off so that she can do her magical classroom thing. I drove over to the other side of campus, parked the car — fifth floor of the parking deck, a midday treat! — and sat in the office for a while, getting the feel of office hours for the semester.
At 2 p.m. I went downstairs and started class, a new class. It is Criticism of Sport Media, and the class filled almost instantly when enrollment started in the spring. This is the one I’ve been fretting over weeks and weeks. It could be a good class, and now, finally, we’ll find out.
I think that’s what a lot of the last six weeks or two months or so has been about — and certainly the last few long nights — the long, slow, plan, worry and wait. It’s a strange thing. Sometime back, about two years and change ago, I filled the better part of a notebook with class ideas. One of my mandates is to create classes, so that’s just a part of it. Sometime last fall I had a series of meetings and the result was that I spouted out a few of those new class ideas. We ended up settling on one for the fall. I’ve thought about it for a year, planned it out since the spring and drilled into the details all summer long. Somewhere along the way I whittled it down to worry, leaving just enough time in the last week or so to stir up a good bout of self-doubt.
More than once I was told I was overthinking things.
It’s a wonderful job, but you must work your way into that part of it.
Imposter syndrome, I think, never goes away.
We had an interesting conversation around the office about it today. The department chair was telling someone about first day nerves. Those never go away, either — how long as that guy been doing this? The Yankee and I were talking about it on the drive in, too. She said it takes her a few weeks to get through it. I figure if things go well through this week I’ll be fine. Ordinarily that’s the case, but new classes, in my experience, are always an adventure.
It all went well enough today, but it’s syllabus day. So long as you remember your wardrobe, make sure the right slides are on the screen and the power stays on syllabus day is a success.
I have a second class right after the first. It is conveniently located in the same room. And four students from the first class, the criticism class, are in the second class, an org comm class. And those poor guys had to listen to the same syllabus day song and dance twice.
One asked, is the syllabus the same in this class as the other?
No, that syllabus is four pages. This one is five.
So, we are through syllabus day, and underway. Thursday, when these classes both meet again, we’ll concentrate on building up a little conversation. Common ground in sport, what these classes are all about, and all of that. Next week we’ll really dive in.
If I don’t rewrite all the lectures again, for the eleventieth time.
I’m not doing that tonight, though. Tonight, I must highlight the kitties. They are, after all, the most popular feature on this website. And they know it.
The other night a moth got into the house. It was flying around the kitchen, and Phoebe found it. She followed it into the far corner.
I like to think that that moth looked down and said, “Aww, cute!” That’s what I would do.
And then the moth probably met its doom.
Seriously, insects, when you sneak in, I’m trying to escort you out for your own good.
Poseidon found something; I have no idea what he was staring at. Nothing was on the wall, but he sat in his tunnel, as he often does, for a long while. And he peered out like this for some time.
Any insect that saw this staring back would instinctively know what to do.
The kitties are doing fine. They are a bit indignant for how long they were left alone today. I wonder if they pick up on habits. We’ll be working from home all day tomorrow, but then out of their site on Thursday, but back again, pecking away in our home offices on Friday. Will they notice that in a few weeks? Will we?
