The Coming Weeks

Well, I finally had one of my wishes granted this week -- as of last night, I now know what I'll be teaching in the spring, at least preliminarily anyhow. I have a schedule very similar to last semester's schedule, though with a lot more downtime and "resting hours," so to speak:

Monday: OFF
Tuesday: English 102 (mornings, West campus); English 011 (night, main campus)
Wednesday: English 210 (night, West campus)
Thursday: English 102 (same class as Tuesday, West campus)
Friday: OFF

As you can see, the two other classes I've been given are night classes, and Tuesday will be my only "long day" of the week where I'll be out of the house all day from morning until night. Teaching on both campuses on Tuesday may be a little trickier than originally planned, but as I will teach on West campus early that morning and not have to be back on Main campus until 7PM to teach the 011 class that night, it shouldn't be too difficult at all.

The 210 class above is the one I basically volunteered for last semester anyway; I knew they'd be teaching it on West campus, and as it was a Wednesday night class and a full semester class (as opposed to the eight-week class I taught last semester) I had already told all of them that if they needed someone to do it, I was their guy. The 011 class is basically the same, as well -- they know I like teaching 011 and find it fun, and they can't really schedule GTAs to teach night classes unless said GTAs don't have any classes at night. As most GTAs will almost always have a Wednesday night class at 7PM, and I don't, well...there you go.

It also means that if I don't want to, I don't have to leave the house on Wednesdays until, oh, 6PM? Ish? Something like that. I can sleep in and/or sleep all day if necessary before making the quiet, don't-worry-about-traffic-or-parking drive to West campus that night to teach that class.

The 102 class, as you know, is the one I knew I'd have waaaaay back in November, and it contains more than half the students I taught for 101 last semester. I can also turn around and come home on Thursday mornings again when I'm done, to start my weekend at 11AM that day (roughly, anyway).

This is, really, a very ideal schedule for me. I'm teaching three classes again, so I'll be making about the same amount every paycheck that I made last semester, give or take (depending on any updated tax stuff and the like; it can fluctuate a little here and there between semesters). I won't have to teach on Mondays this semester, so it's an extra "weekend day" for me. I'll be on the main campus in my office, for a few hours every week, and only on Tuesday afternoons/evenings. I'll have plenty of time to sleep and grade without becoming too stressed out and/or frazzled. I'll be able to piece my budget and finances back together, and get myself back in the black in about another six weeks or so. The schedule is even good in case of really nasty weather -- because two of the classes are evening classes, if we get a nasty snowstorm or something like that, the university will cancel evening classes for the evening first before deciding whether or not they're closing campus the next day, depending on when the weather is supposed to hit. If I have to cancel a class of my own for weather-related issues (even if the university doesn't close), because of the schedule and the fact that I have all sixteen-week classes, I have wiggle room. I have even more wiggle room because I still have the lesson plans for the 011 and 210 classes that I used last semester, which I will only have to modify slightly for lessons and due-dates based on class meeting times.

I actually hope that we do get some crippling snowstorms at some point; it'll give me mini-vacations if school closes down for a day or two.

Unfortunately, it's not all good; this schedule, while it gives me a lot more free time and breathing space for the semester, also cuts into my time with Daisy again pretty harshly and creates a veritable minefield to navigate when it comes to her visits and our wedding planning. As you may know, Daisy works weekends -- Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights. Those are my days off. All of them. Her schedule won't change; we're on completely opposite schedules again. When my weekend starts, her work week starts, and when my work week ends, hers starts up again. It basically looks like we'll be getting most of our time together on Thursdays/Thursday nights, as that's the only time we have real overlap in our schedules. She's taken Valentine's Day off so that she can come down here during the week beforehand, but even that is going to be a tough workaround as she'd be coming down on that Wednesday night (when I teach 210 until 10PM) and she'd have to sleep during the teaching of my 102 class on Thursday morning just to be able to get Valentine's Day with me. It's all do-able, yes, but the travel and the little time we have together is far from ideal, especially as we get closer to the wedding.

My mother keeps asking me about wedding planning stuff, and I don't have a whole lot to tell her; most of that planning has been on hiatus because of not knowing what I would be doing for money/survival over the course of the next few months. Now that I know, I can more easily help Daisy plan things and I won't be so constantly hand-wringing over impending financial doom. Looking ahead to the future is all fine and good, of course, but it's really hard to do that when you don't know how you're going to be able to eat and keep the lights on in your home. That sort of overshadowed everything else for the past several weeks since Christmas.

I emailed the department administrator to give her my thanks and tell her that my schedule looked great. I'm guessing it will all be finalized by tomorrow or Monday at the latest, and I'll have access to all of my classes on Blackboard and Banner shortly thereafter. She sends out the "preliminary" schedule so that if anyone has any conflicts -- especially GTAs who are taking other classes -- those issues can be quickly rectified and taken care of before everything is officially entered into the system. If there are no issues, that schedule is finalized and entered into the system ASAP afterwards. This afternoon, I redid the syllabus and updated the lesson plan for my 011 class, as it's gone from a twice-a-week to a once-a-week course (meaning I basically have to cram an entire week's lessons into one day), and I'll have to email the 102 director to get an updated syllabus/lesson plan from her as the 102 course parameters have been changed since I last taught a normal, non-Engineering version of the course. Said director adores me, so that shouldn't be a problem. I'll mess around with the 210 lesson plans last, as they're the ones which should require the least amount of true modifications to them, and I still have most of them ready and edit-able for the coming semester.

As for the deep freeze I've been under for the better part of the past week? It finally lifted about two days ago. Yesterday it was 41, and today it's been in the 30s and cloudy. By the end of the weekend -- right about the time when Daisy will arrive in town for a few days with me next week -- it's supposed to be in the upper 50s/near 60 again, so all of this snow and ice on the ground and on my driveway should melt off fairly quickly. I took the car out yesterday and went to Walmart to get some essentials, essentials I purchased with the Visa gift cards my parents gave me for Christmas, and it was pleasant outside. Most of the roads are clear and/or dry, with the exception of some of the side streets around my neighborhood that still have ice/slush/snowpack on them in spots. It's also now warm enough consistently to where I don't have to keep the car in the garage for days or weeks on end. I've driven maybe ten miles in the Monte Carlo since the fall semester ended, all of them back and forth on shopping trips. There's still over half a tank of gas in her. On the plus side, I'll save a bit on gas money over this coming semester, as I'll be driving 50 miles less every week than I did before. That's a good thing.

My plans over the next few days are to do what I can to ready myself for the semester, as well as finish what I have left of Breaking Bad and pay my bills, slowly, as they come in. Now that I know what's coming up, my stress levels have finally gone down considerably, and I can finally begin to relax a bit and enjoy what's left of my "winter break."  As mentioned above, Daisy is more than likely coming down here on Tuesday for a few days so that we can get a little more time together before the semester starts up, and I have but one pill left of my Bactrim, which I'll take tonight before bed. I would imagine that I will, from this point forward, sleep much more easily now that all of the pieces are falling into place.