A Moment of Quiet

My day started calmly enough; I got to the office at 7:30, recorded some grades, prepped for class, did some advising preparation.

I taught from 9 to 11, and had what I felt was a good class. Yesterday evening, most of my class went out to dinner together (at an on-campus cafeteria with vile food) and then to a talk. The talk was brilliant, the sort of brilliance that makes me feel like a total failure except insomuch as I can actually see someone else's brilliance and appreciate it. Dinner with the class is a little awkward, but got more relaxed after a bit. Today, we worked with thesis statements on the board, trying to make individual thesis statements stronger, talking about how they map essays, and so forth. We worked on questions for the research paper. It was good, and moderately taxing as a class.

Then I had office hours scheduled from 11-12. At 1:40, I finished talking to students, looked up, and realized what time it was. I had twenty minutes to answer a colleague's question (frighteningly enough, I'm apparently the department expert on finding certain things on the new registration and advising system) and have lunch.

At 2, I had scheduled office time to meet with prospective students for an admissions program. (Remember, without admissions, we don't have anyone to teach!)

At 3:10, I finished talking with a prospective student, and had a few minutes to take care of some paperwork and get myself to my 3:30 meeting.

And now, I've returned from that meeting at 4:45, and am sitting down to think about tomorrow.

My class isn't prepped; I have to do that yet.

Tomorrow, I have three hours at a program for students thinking about different majors, mostly "manning" a booth and talking to students who might want to study English.

And then the weekend comes, and prep for next week, when I'll get two big stacks of papers and one small stack.

And now that I've relaxed a bit, I'm going to do my last hour of prep and be off. I can't even count how many students and prospective students I talked with today, but it was a lot. It's fun, and a good reminder that we get to work with some pretty impressive folks here. But usually my day has more down time, more time to think about the next step, do a little reading or grading, have a bit of conversation over my lunch. Today felt more like what I imagine a lot of people's days are like, non-stop talking with one person after another with the next people already waiting outside. As much as I enjoy chatting with students, I could have used just a little more space between visits.