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| Please send pizza. And gin. |
But, I admit it, I wanted the money. I could have lived without it, but we have no back porch. And teaching this course puts that just in reach. And I said, sure, fuck it, I'll just suck it up and teach a COMP COURSE over five weeks. It will be over before I know it.
My students are not really that bad. They are hard working. They are amazing me really. But I want to kill myself. I really do. I don't think I can take it. My procrastination skills have gone off the hizzy. I am truly out of my mind, blowing off the correcting until it cannot wait and pulling all nighters and drinking like a college student, ferchristsakes.
I will never do this again. Never never never never never.
This.
ReplyDeleteConsider that next summer, you'll be able to drink like a college student while sitting on your back porch.
ReplyDeleteI tell myself each summer after class starts.
ReplyDeleteMine starts tomorrow night. Seven weeks of hybrid comp 101. At this point only 6 students are registered so grading should only take me an hour and a half to two hours a week, tops. And I need the money as sole income for family of 4. Summer always sucks for us. The money's not great but it's still more than I made as an adjunct in Large Midwestern Urban Area, and combined with the tax returns, should be enough to pay the bills til October.
ReplyDeleteThink of how awesome it would be if we actually got paid to do prof development, tweak our courses, etc. over the summer...then again, don't. Unless you've got a fifth handy.
Ugh. Pain! We had graduation yesterday. I'm teaching Summer Session 1 today with eight students who cannot register for their senior year until they pass Comp 1.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's possible for you to do, but in summer, since we have condensed 10 weeks into three, I do way less "correcting" and more 'end comments.' I also just started checking things on a rubric of what they still needed to do or work on. That cut my 'correcting' time in half.
Thought only I did this: "My procrastination skills have gone off the hizzy. I am truly out of my mind, blowing off the correcting until it cannot wait and pulling all nighters."
ReplyDeleteBut, Bella, I'm going to take this seriously: "But I want to kill myself. I really do. I don't think I can take it. . . . drinking like a college student. . ." Hang in there. This too shall pass, and we like you around here.
We joke a lot about drinking here, but it is a depressant and it sounds like you've got some of that going on already. I've been there and found it helped to try substitute feel-good measures to look forward to during or between bouts of grading:
Grading outside (so you don't have a porch yet, but you could set up a card table and chair on the cheap)
Grading at a cafe (surprisingly less distracting than home)
Splurging on really good iced tea (still cheaper than wine)
Taking a walk after grading 10 papers
Swimming at the neighborhood or college pool after grading a set.
Also, The Contemplative Cynic's tricks work for me.
Finally, as long as I'm being preachy, meditation works wonders for calming down all the busy thoughts that can seem much more important than grading. It's really worth the time; it's like a mental vacation.
Of course, much of the time I spend on CM is procrastination of grading.
DeleteThese are all good suggestions!
DeleteThere is no extra whatsoever that could ever, ever, ever tempt me to teach summer school. I don't blame anyone who has to do it to pay the basic bills, but I would rather sit in the dirt at the back of my house sucking Mad Dog 20/20 than teach summer school.
ReplyDeleteHa. I am tending to agree with you right now!
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