Spring semester: day sixty-eight
There has been a lot going on this week, most of it interesting and good (I say most, of course, for a reason). Because of this I'm going to recap most of it for you.
First things first -- I have secured a teaching position for the summer. This is incredible luck, because I only had about a 30% chance of receiving a position over the summer. Only five spots were available, and fifteen or more of us applied to get said spots (including Rae, who apparently didn't get one despite her pleads). I feel bad about this, of course -- I feel bad for anyone who needed a summer teaching gig as much as I did but didn't get one. I'm not sure if all of them have been announced yet, however; our office administrator in the department told me about mine earlier this week, because she knew how worried I was about being able to survive this summer without any additional income. I've not really kept that a secret amongst the higher-up administrative types in the department, including the office ladies as well as two of my three "bosses" (the third is on sabbatical).
The class I'll be teaching is the standard English 102, a class I have not yet taught (yes, I teach English 102 now, but it's the Science/Engineering 102 and is therefore quite different than the standard 102). It will be a ten-week course, from the end of May through the end of July, and it will be held one night a week on Tuesdays on the west campus, not the main campus.
This is, of course, the best teaching schedule I could have possibly asked for. I mean, one night a week? That's amazing. It leaves me the rest of my summer to work on my thesis as well as basically do whatever else I need to do -- whether that involves writing for the newspaper or working some other job. For this teaching position I'll be paid a little less than two grand. It's something like that, anyway. I've not been told any salary details, but I do know that it's close to that from other friends who have taught in the summer.
I haven't mentioned the west campus much mainly because none of us ever have to go there. It's not even in Wichita; it's in a suburb on the outskirts of Wichita called Maize. I've been there a few times; Maize is a nice little town with lots of shopping, a massive Goodwill store, and a Five Guys. It also has Flat State University's west campus, which is a huge and sprawling one-story building built only a few years ago. It's very, very nice, and all of the classrooms are "smart classrooms," meaning they're fully wired for multimedia presentations and the like. The majority of the summer classes take place there, at least for the English department. It is a gorgeous setup. So yes, I'm quite thankful that I not only don't have to worry about finding a summer job immediately, but that the one I'll have will require minimal time investment.
This, as you probably have guessed, takes a huge weight off my shoulders. Money will still be tight for a while, make no mistake, but I will be able to survive on my summer teaching paycheck even if I do nothing else for the majority of the summer.
In other news, yesterday I read three of my poems to a rather large audience at the library. In fact, it was one of the biggest audiences I've ever seen for one of the MFA readings. There were two drawbacks to this reading, however:
1.) I was, by far, the worst of the four readers there, and definitely spent the least amount of time at the podium (I clocked it at about five minutes, maximum. It seemed like much less than that).
2.) Lady was not able to make it into town to see me read.
I had known for a day or two beforehand that Lady was probably not going to be able to come, despite all her plans and intentions of doing so. She, like the rest of us, is wrapping up her semester at her own college, and she has a ton of work and responsibilities to manage and take care of just like everyone else. One of these responsibilities is the play she's currently in. I've mentioned before, briefly, that Lady is an actress, and is very active in her school's stage productions despite not being a drama/theater major. She's been in two full-length plays since we've been together, and we've not been together an incredibly long time yet. Anyway, in the play she's in now, she plays a pretty important part (read: one of the larger roles), so it's near-impossible for her to skip rehearsals regardless of how well she knows her part already. She's already missed practices to come see me on these past two weekends as well, so...yeah, getting out a third time probably wasn't going to happen anyway. She did tell me, however, that she really, really tried to get out of it.
She didn't miss much, however; the reading was very uneventful, despite the crowd there. Of the four readers, I will be the only one in and around the department for the foreseeable future -- two are graduating in a few weeks, and the third is leaving the program. So, like I said, I read my three poems (originally wanted to read four, but eh), thanked the audience, and sat back down. The poems I read were all newer ones -- "Our Winter Snow is Shining," "The Exercise," and "Slow Down" -- the latter two of which were written about Lady (one of the other reasons I was hoping she'd make it).
Afterwards, I came straight home, told Lady that everything had gone well, and that I was going to take a nap. The next thing I remember, it was 2AM and my phone (which I'd taken downstairs with me in case Lady needed to call me) was ringing in the night, and in my haze of sleep I recognized it as Lady's custom ringtone. I had passed out for close to seven hours straight, and Lady had been worried about me as I hadn't awakened. Those of you who are my longtime friends know that me passing out for upwards of twelve hours isn't uncommon -- regardless of the time of day or night and especially if I've been exhausted and sleep-deprived, but Lady hasn't exactly experienced my comatose-like sleep patterns when I'm totally worn out yet, as we've only been together a few months. We ended up talking for over an hour in the middle of the night while I woke up and while she prepared to go to bed.
After she went to bed, I stayed up for the rest of the night -- again, yes, my sleep patterns are screwed up because I can never get enough rest -- and began work on my final project for my editing class -- a project that will consume most of my weekend, more than likely, just so that I can get it done and out of the way. I got a little research for it done and have been able to plot out the major lessons I need to cover (it's a semester-long lesson plan), but the real work for it won't come until probably Saturday/Sunday/Monday nights. I went back to bed around 9AM, and slept until 3PM. This basically ruined any other productivity I would have had for the rest of the day, which sucks because I'd planned to get gas in the car, put more air in the tires (they're getting low again) and to go run some small errands, including getting stamps and going to the discount grocery store in town in order to get more Powerbars for the office. I'd also planned to mow the grass again. All of this looks like it'll have to wait until tomorrow or Sunday...depending on when I wake up, of course. As I type this, it's 2:38 AM and my body/mind has shown me no signs of wanting to sleep anytime soon.
As all of us rush headlong into the last two weeks of classes, for most of us the action in the department and within our own classes is ramping up as well. I've mentioned here before that this is the craziest time of the semester for anyone in academia -- student, professor, or both (as we GTAs are), but it builds and builds, faster and faster, hits its crescendo, and then...everything stops. Like, a screeching, grinding halt of stoppage, when everything is finished. My students turn in their final papers on May 1st, which I have basically decided will be their last day of class -- there's no reason for them to come back on the 3rd; I can give them their practice exam on the 1st and let them be done, for there's nothing more I can teach them and no further advice I can give them after they turn in their papers. May 7th is their final, and after I give their final and tally their grades, I'm done for the semester. As in, completely done. All of my work will have been turned in and graded by that point, and being there for the final and for the grading of said final is but a formality. The last week of classes for me is really strange anyway:
Monday, April 30: OFF
Tuesday, May 1: Collect students' final papers, give practice exam, say final farewells. Have final poetry workshop class, say final farewells there too.
Wednesday, May 2: Hold last office hours of the semester, work final Writing Center hour of the semester. Practicum is a practice grading session for final exams; Editing class is canceled, though if needed my professor will be in his office to look over drafts and field questions on the final projects. My goal is to have my final project completely done, turned in, and hopefully graded long before this date, so I should be able to go home around 3PM.
Thursday, May 3: OFF. Moving everything with my students to the 1st means I get an extra day off -- therefore, I will be grading through the bulk of my students' papers on this day (if I haven't already done so on the 2nd).
Friday, May 4: Again, OFF. The English department is always off on Fridays. Hopefully Lady will be able to come in this weekend, as it is the last weekend before she "graduates," a graduation which I will be driving three hours to attend (as it will finally allow me to meet her mother and her aunt).
After that? Well, like I said, the 7th is my students' final, and then I'm done as soon as the grades are calculated and posted. It will be a freeing feeling, especially as I haven't touched my Xbox or PlayStation in four months, and haven't had any time to really sleep as much as my body needs, either. I don't start teaching the summer class until the end of May.
As for the summer, a lot of things are still up in the air -- though they're not things pertaining to my job (that I already mentioned). It is my understanding that Lady will more than likely be returning home to her family for the vast majority of the summer, with her future education plans as of yet unknown. While it will be hard on both of us to be apart for such a long stretch of time, we'll deal with it; we'll have to, really. Both of us have been in long-distance relationships before, so it's nothing new -- hell, the first full year I was with my ex, she lived in Missouri and I was still living in West Virginia. And, knowing Lady, it's not like she won't steal away as soon as she can to come back out here to visit me for a while.
However, with my ten-week teaching position, I'm rather locked down here in Kansas -- while I could theoretically leave town for a few days (I'd like to visit my parents again with Lady, even if we have to do the same sort of travel we did over Spring Break), I can't ever be gone too long. My class meets but once a week on Tuesday nights, and it's not like I can cancel a one-night-a-week class without serious repercussions to the teaching schedule. About the only thing that would let/make me cancel class is if horrible tornadoes rolled through the area and the west campus closed for the night, or something along those lines (this actually happened last summer one night when the ex was teaching her own summer sessions in June). Aside from that, however? I'm basically stuck here for the vast majority of the summer. I have twenty days or so in May (after finals, of course) before I begin teaching, and about twenty days after I finish at the end of July before school starts back up again for the fall semester. If I'm going to make any sorts of trips like that, they'll have to be planned out well in advance, more than likely.
Besides, both Lady and I would like to see Andrea again too...that is, if she sticks around town for the summer.
So, that's what's going on right now. Good things, I suppose. At least I have a summer teaching position, at least the semester's almost over, and at least I will finally, finally be able to get some responsibility-free relaxation time in soon. None of it can come soon enough.
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