I made the mistake of thinking ahead today, and now my head hurts. But sometimes you must do that — thinking ahead, I mean, not self-induced cephalgia — so that’s what I did today. I printed out calendars, September through December. I did this three times. And this is the start of my fall semester. The work begins anew, with a smile, and no pay until September, etc. This work will continue until mid-December, which will roll immediately into the spring term. The second thing I did was to look at all of the academic calendars. Classes begin this day, Thanksgiving is that day, finals will occur on those days. The next five months are defined. <\/p>\n
I accidentally glanced at the spring calendar, then quickly distracted myself by figuring out my weekly schedule and office hours for the term. That took three Post-it notes. Now they’re just hanging on the corner of my monitor. Taunting me. <\/p>\n
There’s a lot of preparation to do in the next month. But not as much as in some other semesters. One class I must convert from an online class to an in-person format. That’s going to be a task, with some things coming out, some things need to go in the newly vacant spaces, plus there’s the simple trick of doing a class twice a week as opposed to via email. <\/p>\n
To build momentum, I’ll start somewhere else. Two classes must be converted from twice-a-week to once-a-week. One of them is get an structural overhaul. The other, just needs to be redone to accommodate the new term. Maybe some more theories. Seemed light last semester. That means more studying on my part, which is fine, great even. <\/p>\n
And this, friends, is how I will fill a month-and-change of work. Hence the headache. But I’ll be pacing myself. There’s time for that.<\/p>\n
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<\/center><\/p>\nThe feature act we saw this weekend was Barenaked Ladies. I hadn’t realized it, but we’ve now established a little tradition of seeing them every summer. We went from my lovely bride, a few years ago, having never seen them to now having an annual appointment. I think this is her fifth time seeing them. And that means she has seen five of Jim Creeggan’s upright bass solos. Here’s one now. <\/p>\n