It’s a big week of doing work. A big week of working. So this probably will be a light week here, while I’m busy being productive finishing syllabi, making Canvas come to life, pulling together lecture notes and the like. And then there’s the endless doubt and self-recrimination that always comes with taking on, and creating, new classes. Am I doing this right? Is it right? Is it enough?
Is it too much? Will it hold up to scrutiny? Can others also find it interesting? Am I going to meet the class objectives? Will it be well received? Will we want to offer this again?
I’d feel this way about it if someone gave me an immortally successful class that was failproof.
I might feel this way with a class I’d built that was always successful, too. But I have somehow never had a lot of opportunity to test that concept. My chair noted in my contract packet last spring that I’m flexible and amendable to taking on new courses at the last minute. It was kind of him to say, but that’s perhaps not the reputation you want to burnish. Constantly building and learning and mastering new material is a fun challenge, but it can be a challenge — especially if you want to really master it.
This term I am teaching classes seven, eight and nine here. It’s my fifth semester here. There’s a certain amount of psychic energy involved in all of that.
The good news is that I can worry over this a little more. Perhaps, by 2027, I’ll have finally built out all my own courses. My own corner, indeed.
Anyway.
There’s something about my Saturday bike ride I’m trying to get off my chest. This was one of those rides where I wanted to change up from the usual routes. Sometimes the best surprises come from simply asking the question: what’s down that way? So I did some very familiar roads, and then I got to a particular place and turned left instead of the usual right. I was rewarded with some lovely tree-covered roads, a delightful change of pace considering how often we’re riding out in the open air wind here. I was under those trees, in that shade and on those close-in curvy roads long enough that when I got funneled back out into the farmland again it was a bit of a shock. So bright! And wide open!
About the time I adjusted to that again, I realized where I was. I’d come this way before, but in the other direction. Then I saw a sign which told me which town was in each direction and I was clearly oriented. And so I’ve put another few roads together in the mental map.
It was about that time that I saw a little blinking light well ahead of me. Another cyclist! Instead of turning around, I decided I’d go catch that person, which I did about a mile later. Before that, though, I experienced a dangerous pass from a truck hauling a trailer loaded with a Bobcat. The truck would have been bad enough, but it was one of those that felt like you were going to get sucked under the trailer. I suspect you’d need to experience that to really appreciate it.
So when I got up to the other cyclist, I asked him how his day was. I asked him how that truck had been for him. He gave me a grim half-smile, which allowed him long enough to play it cool. “He gave me about a foot.”
And, friends, that’s not OK. Nor should we play like it is.
Since it was Saturday, and I had a long bike ride, and elsewhere my lovely bride set a new PR in the Olympic distance tri, we celebrated with a custard.
At the same time, all of this is still going on outside.
And there’s easily more than a week of that to go. No scurvy will be had in August.
Yesterday i tore myself away from the computer for 90 minutes for a bike ride. I did my 25-mile time trial route and took 36 seconds off my previous best, which was just last week. Making me think that I might be close to topping out. Or that there are still a lot of gains to be made. Anything is possible.
Either way, the corn is coming along nicely. Sometimes you whip out the camera and shoot something at 19 mph without even looking at the composition, and it works out pretty well.
Hopefully the next one will, too.
