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Post by Stillhopeful on Nov 30, 2006 4:50:00 GMT -5
Wow. I am so glad you spoke up about the unfair workload, Johannes. I'm sure you know the saying: "The squeaky wheel gets the oil". ;D Nice one waiting it out at the coffee shop, too. I am glad you are expressing your thoughts and feelings so cleanly here and I find the detail of your day very interesting, as I'm sure others do. I'll be checking tomorrow. I don't watch TV/DVDs but your journal is better than Six Feet Under (whatever that is) as it's Six Feet above, and then some! Keep writing and living, living and writing! Still
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Post by johannes3 on Nov 30, 2006 18:25:32 GMT -5
I'm smiling reading your supportive words, Still. Indeed, six feet above is better than six feet below.....well, I think I'm two feet above right now--I wouldn't really know since the non-metric system continues to mystify me--sitting on my bed, and writing in earlier in the day than usual...I want to write in because I need some calmness before tackling the rest of the day. I'm in one of those "I'm totally overwhelmed" modes, and the temptation to procrastinate via dvd is there. That's the unhealthy way. The healthy way is to, well, update my journal, and express how I feel and what I need to do. And then calmly do one thing, then the next thing. The first thing I will do after writing this post is clear up the mess of essays that's on my desk. I know I need to grade about four of them for tomorrow, and that's what I'll do once some order is restored on my desk. Now I'm getting nervous just thinking oh but then there's this and this and this I still need to do for tomorrow. But wait. That should wait, I think, until those essays are out of the way--they're what's dragging me down right now.
I think I'll check in again later tonight to say how things are coming along.
Johannes
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Post by johannes3 on Nov 30, 2006 20:56:24 GMT -5
Update. I got a little bit of grading done, but for the past 45 minutes I've just been in the ropes. I started watching a dvd, then realized that wasn't really relaxing. Then I was proud that I actually read a chapter Jane Austen. But still my concentration is totally shot. The last 15 minutes I've been surfing online.
I'm so tired. I had hoped I didn't have any student conferences scheduled tomorrow morning, but I just checked, and I do, so I need to get more work done tonight.
I'm going to have dinner now, and perhaps I'll be a bit re-energized after that.
Let's all recover.
Johannes
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Post by Stillhopeful on Dec 1, 2006 8:02:14 GMT -5
You are coping, Johannes. If it's any consolation, your day/evening sounds a lot like mine: wondering which of a myriad of tasks should be done next, and what to put off until tomorrow - all mingled with trying to stave off tiredness and an awareness that each task comes with a certain amount of stress, which we would rather avoid. What is important to remind ourselves, however, is we are out there and part of this world. We are contributing to it by giving to others - we are teaching, mingling, having discussions, assessing work, researching, administrating our classes and other structures at work, and so on. This type of contribution is complex, and many do fall by the wayside. However, we will stick the road to the end, right? It doesn't matter if there are rocks strewn on that road. We will keep going! PS In two days I will be away for a week at conferences interstate, and won't be stopping by. I will read your journal on my return, however. bye for now, Still
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Post by johannes3 on Dec 1, 2006 23:39:05 GMT -5
Ah yes, Still, we will keep going....living and writing, writing and living... I'm checking in a bit late, so I may not write as much as I would like to otherwise. But I'd like to pat myself on the back ;D ;D After getting home today, I didn't get into any kind of funk, but calmly realized, "Okay, first thing I need to do for the weekend is to clean up my apartment. Now that's a totally daunting task and I'd prefer zoning out. No, but wait. I can do this one task at a time...." And so I folded and put away my laundry, then cleaned up my kitchen, and finally managed to clear up my desk. All of that took two hours or so, and I'm really happy--yes, there's a stack of essays on my desk, but things feel so much more manageable in a clean place. Really. I then rewarded myself with one episode of "Six Feet Under," and it was great cause I didn't compulsively go on to the next episode. We've had strange weather here in the Northeast. Today, it felt like a spring day, and towards evening high winds came up--hey, I only know the expression "high winds" because they used it on the radio this morning... ;D--and it was fun seeing the clouds swiftly moving across the sky, covering and uncovering the moon. I'm glad I got through this teaching week. I have to prepare some things over the weekend, specifically for the class where I came up with that radical assignment--we determined the groups today which would deal with a certain topic, but it became very clear to me that I'll need to give the students lots of guidance, else they'll quickly feel frustrated. And I had a sweet personal moment after class today--you know, I so much rely on having good rapport with my students (and I do!!!!!!!), but so there was this hilarious scene: I was talking with a student about her paper, and I was teasing her about some detail she was writing on, and so she then made this hand gesture people sometimes make when they'll act as if they want to hit you cause you're teasing them. I had to chuckle afterwards, thinking how for a second there was truly no teacher-student distance between us, and I could imagine that she was a bit embarassed thinking, oh my God, I treated my teacher as an equal. Last night was tough. One good thing though was that I talked with a friend and we celebrated the fact that he had just been notified of a phone interview for one of his job applications. I'm really happy for him, and only a bit envious.... Still, have a good conference time! Let's all recover, Johannes
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Post by Stillhopeful on Dec 2, 2006 4:46:50 GMT -5
Great post and well done! I am off to the first conference tomorrow. My first task will be advising about eight doctoral students who are about a year into their programs. This will definitely be a challenge! Keep going as you are doing and post here daily, and I will check back in about a week. Still
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Post by findingjoy on Dec 2, 2006 11:10:10 GMT -5
Ooooh. Board gem. For me, anyway. As soon as my office or home get unmanageably messy or dirty, I'm almost paralyzed.
I'm going to have to seriously limit my time online and get my life into a more manageable state.
Thanks!
fj
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Post by johannes3 on Dec 2, 2006 12:22:21 GMT -5
Hehehe, I'm amassing board gems these days..... fj, check out the "Internet Accountability" thread on the general board, started by one "johannes 2"; it's a work-in-progress, but I think we're getting somewhere.... I'll write more here after responding to my friend Leo! ;D ;D ;D Johannes
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Post by findingjoy on Dec 2, 2006 12:57:44 GMT -5
I've been following that thread, but I just don't feel like being accountable!!!
fj
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Post by johannes3 on Dec 2, 2006 13:02:20 GMT -5
Saturday, 1 o'clock. This day did start off really well--I reaped the benefits of last nights sane and healthy time spent, and so I got up early (well, relatively), and made it to the coffee shop just in time before the Saturday crowd rushes in. I think this is a good plan--try to get to the coffee shop early on Saturday; it'll a) motivate me to get to bed early on Fridays, and b) avoid fuzziness and funk Saturday mornings. So I've been here a few hours, and did get a bit of work done. But now there are several tasks ahead of me that I'm a bit nervous about, and so I surfed aimlessly online for a few minutes, and then realized it's time to get to the board. I'm taking a break from anxiety for a moment, and looking around--it's just so wonderful to gaze at people in a kindly, non-objective way. People are constantly moving through this coffee shop--it's not the coziest one, it has more the feel of a take-out place. To be honest--grrr, how bothersome to be honest!!!--I'm also a bit nervous because I probably don't have a new dvd waiting in my mailbox at home. So I gotta give more thought to how I'll spend my free time in a productive manner. I think the answer for this weekend could be--Jane Austen. We shall see. After finishing this journal entry, I'll have to write a dozen or so e-mails to my two classes; it's organizational stuff and a bit complicated. If I can get that done in an hour, that'd be great, and I'd feel alright going home for lunch. I'm already starting to get excited about the Spring term. It's so much fun thinking about how to create my syllabus--it's a literature intro course (with huge writing component), and I like one of the anthologies we can use, and I think I'll also use the option of assigning a short novel. Of course, I always try to sneak in as much Gerrman literature as possible; I think the novel will be "Demian" by Hermann Hesse. And it's just so much fun thinking about the various thematic and historic topics I want to integrate in the course. Recovery. I'm realizing that counting days and stuff makes no sense to me anymore. I've been sober for two and a half weeks now, but more importantly, I can just FEEL how with every journal entry here I'm doing exactly what's needed to eradicate that need for acting-out (choselife expressed this much better recently ). I'm still astonished at this leap I've made, and clearly: I'm committing myself to writing in here every day--because that's what's keeping me on this new level of recovery, and I don't want to interrupt this journey again. Let's all recover. Johannes
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Post by johannes3 on Dec 3, 2006 13:46:55 GMT -5
Hehehe, well following that thread is a start.... ;D
I need to remind myself every day how important this journal is for me. It's still so easy for me to fall into silence mode. Anyway, so the rest of Saturday was, well, okay. I did get some work done, and relaxed in the afternoon and early evening. But I then lacked the energy to pick up a book, and wander into the civilized world of Jane Austen....instead, I ended up wasting some time online. All in all, I wasn't very much in the present moment--at some point a friend called, and that was nice, but I wasn't really paying much attention to our conversation.
This morning, I came to the board and spent time re-reading LeopoldMozart's original journal thread.
I've just spent two hours commenting on students' essays--gosh, as the semester comes to an end, the quality of my feedback is rapidly diminishing. Time for a break.
It's a sunny late autunm day here in Beautiful Town. Oh, actually this morning I woke up around 6, and as I looked outside I was completely stunned by the glorious colors of the sunrise on the horizon. And throughout the morning, sunlight has been flooding my apartment. This is all so very beautiful.
What else? Remember my fear about the impending (is that a word? I mean "upcoming") faculty visit in my class--well, I still haven't been contacted about it, and I've decided to let sleeping dogs lie. We'll see what happens...Should I be proactive, and inquire into this situation? I dunno.
I feel writing in this journal is like building a safe bridge of sorts--with every entry I'm adding a plank and it becomes easier to walk on the bridge, and it becomes more stable. But of course I'm still very far away from any kind of secure construction (Golden Gate Bridge this ain't!!). It's still very easy to smash the bridge (that is, act out). But so I'm taking it one plank at a time. Let's continue building, just for today ;D ;D ;D
I'll write in again later tonight.
Let's all recover.
Johannes
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Post by johannes3 on Dec 3, 2006 21:13:12 GMT -5
Checking in. As I just wrote in the internet accountability thread, I procrastinated a lot today. I'm so sad and so angry about this. Yes, I'm grateful that I didn't cross into acting-out territory. It's this typical pattern, after wasting my time online, it's now almost 9, and I just feel depressed, and am tempted to procrastinate even more to numb my frustration. So that stack of essays is still there, and I think the only way I can get into a better mood is to comment at least on a few of them now. Oh. I'm so sorry I'm whining about this all the time. Right now, I'm wondering what my aim should be in returning them. Here's what the quiet healthy voice is telling me: "It is totally alright if you return these essays in a week from now. Sure, it's important you pay attention to the drafts people have been sending you, and you worked well on those. So don't go crazy." Some background... ;D This semester is the first time I'm teaching two courses. And since they are 2 composition courses, in which each student has to write 5 essays, everyone--students and I--are losing energy, I think. Okay. Here's what I'll do. I will work on two essays now--oh, just writing that down makes me cringe and want to procrastinate further--but two is not impossible. When I've done that, hopefully before 10, I'll come to the board again. I know, I'm a bit like a little child right now. Having to plan each step, and write up all these commitments. But I'm not ashamed of this. Well, I'm a little bit ashamed, but really just a little I never used to share my worries; they always seemed so petty. And sure, worrying about student essays, that sounds petty. But it's not. It's what I'm feeling right now. Okay, I'll be back in 50 minutes ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Let's all recover. Johannes
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Post by LookingForward on Dec 3, 2006 21:23:43 GMT -5
I've just spent two hours commenting on students' essays--gosh, as the semester comes to an end, the quality of my feedback is rapidly diminishing. Time for a break. I did some grading myself today--still have 3 short papers left, but too tired to read them. Perhaps I'll force myself to read one more tonight. The last one I graded, I could only eek out 2 sentences worth of comments. I sat there trying to think of something else, but eventually just put down a score. By this time of the year, we are all running on fumes.
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Post by johannes3 on Dec 3, 2006 22:40:50 GMT -5
Thanks so much, LF! Your response actually made me smile--I can so relate to this agony when you're all out of steam and no commentary sentences will flow out of the pen (or on the screen, in my case). Well, "Good work!" does count as a sentence, right?
So I breezed through two essays--yay!--and was all set to do two more, but essay 3 turned out to be one of *those* essays--meaning, I strongly suspect plagiarism. Alas. It's not plagiarism of the totally stupid kind, meaning I couldn't google any parts. But it's still pretty obvious--I started getting suspicious when the paper talked about hazing laws in Rhode Island! To my knowledge, Beautiful Town University ain't up there...
We'll see what I do. I'm aware that lots of plagiarizing (in this case, I suspect a relative or friend wrote the essay) are cries for help, and I'm usually willing to give people millions of second chances. But I have to carefully think about how I broach the subject to the student. Of course, since this was relatively sophisticated cheating, and there's a real danger that the student will claim he wrote the paper. I think what I'll do is ask him to tell me in detail what he wrote.
And heck, they always forget that, especially as a writing teacher, I can usually immediately tell when a student's writing style mysteriously changes all of a sudden.
I'm also still in shock about the end of Abel's journal.
It's 10:40 now. I still want to respond to my friends Leo and Mitch, let's see.......
Let's all recover.
Johannes
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Post by johannes3 on Dec 4, 2006 10:35:33 GMT -5
Okay, I am so cheating now--I'm just writing in now to get to post # 100--oh the regrets over zeroing out in the past! I'd have been a tribal elder already long long ago. Well, maybe this time...... Doing alright. Gave feedback on two essays this morning, and am now preparing to get to school. Today is meditation group day, and afterwards I have lots of conferences with students. I'm not very clear on how to structure the remaining classes yet--have to work on that over the day. I'm fearing that several students are at a total loss with the current essay assignment, and I have to think abolut how we can get a productive class session going tomorrow. Gotta rush. I'll write in later tonight.... Becoming a Tribal Elder, 100 posts at a time..... Let's all recover. Johannes
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