I had this grand plan that I would begin my days by leisurely blogging. Ha.
The semester is flying by! I am barely on top of the things I absolutely need to do everyday, and even then, I occasionally find myself with half a lecture prepared and twenty minutes to finish the other half. Fortunately, I work well under pressure. Unfortunately, I don’t do anything else well under pressure.
My job here is intense; the students are smart, motivated, committed, and genuinely kind and thoughtful. I’m used to having to exert great force to get students to come to office hours, visit a tutor, or take advantage of opportunities to help them learn. Here, many students don’t even need my intervention. Those that I have nudged to seek a little help have been willing and thorough. I really, really love this atmosphere!
The most difficult part of the job right now is figuring out how long things will take and then scheduling enough time. This weekend, for example, I would like to get my portion of midterm grading done. I also have a stack of writing assignments from my writing intensive linear algebra class to finish grading (we teach proof writing alongside linear algebra).
Next weekend, I’m going to the AMS sectional meeting in Louisville; I have to write that talk, and I should probably get my lectures for the beginning of the week prepared, too.
I’ve been managing to do some fun stuff, too. There’s a pub trivia night on Tuesdays here at the Little Pub on campus. I’ve joined a faculty team (“No Extra Credit”) and we’re doing pretty well. I go to the climbing wall a few times a week, which is really good for my mental health. Tonight I’m going to a jazz performance, and tomorrow there’s a “Fallcoming” picnic for the math department where majors, faculty, and alumni get together.
Today a student asked me to mentor his senior project.
I’m slowly starting to feel like I fit in here.