semesterly teaching freak-out

Well, you knew it was coming.

Now that the semester is almost over and my thesis is finished (99% anyway; I still have to get some signatures and fill out one last form), I've been thinking about teaching. I've been thinking about how little work I've actually done in my classroom this semester. About how my students have a lot of potential but I haven't managed to tap into it.

This freak-out may be partially induced by the fact that my boss finally got around to scheduling my observation, which I've been hoping he would forget ever since he cancelled the original appointment back in October. But he didn't forget, and he's coming Monday.

This week, we're watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and tomorrow, they're writing their in-class essay on it. I haven't written my question yet. Some of the students hate the movie and most of them are totally confused by it, so I'm not sure where to go with it. I better figure it out soon, because I have to leave in about 40 minutes.

Other things I've been slacking off on for the last few weeks? Writing poems, submissions, PhD applications, working on my final projects, paying bills. I hope nothing is about to be shut off. I can't remember the last time I paid an electric bill (I mean, was it two weeks ago or a month, not "geeze, I haven't paid my electric bill all semester"). If life goes as planned and I'm an academic forever, I wonder if I will ever get used to the rhythms of academic life. I wonder if I will ever be able to get personal things done at times other than xmas break and summer.

*

My nephew is a senior engineering major. He's been talking to his profs about getting his masters, but he's got a job interview at his dream job in a couple weeks. In California. And the university is paying for his travel. Maybe I should have been an engineer. It's crazy how different things are between the sciences and the humanities. I guess everybody knows that, but I'm living in the middle of it, wondering how I'm going to pay back my student loans and he's interviewing for jobs that pay 4 times what I'll make as an adjunct next semester.

But I'm not in this for the money, right? It's still hard not to be a tiny bit jealous.

On the upside, everything I do has my name on it; everything he does has the University of Akron on it. Nobody gets to know how brilliant he is except me.