North American Calendar Possum

I'm supposed to be writing. Well, editing and adding. Whatever.

Today's the first day in the new term that I've managed to get completely to myself, free from anything but chores and what-not. Naturally, I have ridiculous writer's block, even though I'm editing and adding. Or whatever.

I made the leap at the start of the term to keep better track of my schedule. I'm on a Mac, and I have an iPhone, and it all syncs up nicely, so why not put stuff into the calendar since my school finally has a set-up allowing Macs to connect to things like campus e-mail and such? And I've been dutiful about it, thus far, making sure to plug in events. I've also been trying not to say no to invitations out.

Only now opening the calendar is enough to paralyze me for awhile. I should at least have the decency to fall over and play dead or something when it happens instead of just standing stunned, waiting for the shoe to drop. But no!

First off, I hate that I've hit a point where I can't remember all the details myself anymore. I'm consoling myself that isn't that I'm getting old, but rather that somehow there's more stuff to keep track of. But second, that level of organization feels more than a little confining to me. It was the fascists who wanted the trains to run on time, after all. This much order in my own life feels confining. Certainly, I like a bit of it - no doubt there are folks reading who are laughing a little to themselves thinking of all the amusing moments where I like to impose rules on myself and others. Still, I like the chaos, too (I'll take a picture of my desk sometime if you don't believe me).

So that's the start of the term. My classes are going well, though I'm still struggling to get enrollment for them, but I'm getting there. And if I can get this writing thing (well, editing and adding...whatever) under control, it won't be so bad at all.

Things I Should Not Be Doing

• Sitting in office hours, playing this game
• Mixing up dates on my calendar. Seriously, I feel like I'm developing some scheduling-centri version of dyslexia
• getting frustrated at my ill sister to the point that I had to say (in an attempt to get her to focus and abandon a little of the melodrama): "Just write a note and tack it to the refrigerator about what we should do if we find your body."
• looking this forward to this, and its soundtrack by Karen O
  

New Faculty Dilemma

So it appears our new faculty hiring has gone through, as today we've been talking about the schedule for next year. But now we've hit - or I'm hitting - on a new sort of difficulty. We, like many schools our size, leave course scheduling choices largely up to faculty. I have, by and large, been able to put courses into the time slots that I think will work best for me.

But this morning, the question that came up is that our new faculty member wants to put the freshmen intro course they'll be teaching on a one night a week schedule. If I'm reading everyone correctly, this makes everyone here uncomfortable. It certainly does with me, though this may be because I taught a one night a week course here my first term in, and it was a disaster. It might also be because an intro course tends to bring in the widest variety of students, and that tends to average out to a short attention span. Three hours straight is a long time for a dog-and-pony show.

If it were just me navigating these waters, I'd simply lay out my concerns to the new faculty member. But, particularly because of earlier moments in the search process, I feel like the waters need to be navigated are even more treacherous. I don't want to, in raising my concerns, trip any alarm bells for the others who have (finally) seemed to calm down from all the search nonsense. Honestly, I'd like a quiet run to the end of the term.

And there's that question of academic freedom, as well, which we don't usually talk about in relationship to things like class scheduling. But as I was trying to convey my worries, I also realized that it's entirely possible that just because a three hour intro course doesn't work in my imagination, doesn't mean someone else can't make it work.