Spring 2008 by the numbers
Weeks in the semester: 14Total students: 19
Courses taught: 2
Total class meetings: 69
Times I was mistaken for a student in the library: 2
Times I told them I was actually faculty: 1
Corncob pipes gifted to me with the express purpose of demonstrating my advanced age to library staff: 1
Dinners eaten at the student dining hall, and approximate time of meal: 1; 5 p.m.
Packed lunches eaten in office: 3
Packed lunches eaten in department lounge: 24
Lunches at the faculty dining hall I was dragged to because the French department found my lunch-eating habits too pathetic: 1
Swings to piñata at end-of-year department party: 3
Direct hits: 2
Papers graded: 114
Oral presentations attentively listened to: 37
Novels taught: 5
Films taught: 13
Evening film screenings: 4
Evening film screenings canceled for lack of an audience: 1
Spanish majors who chose me as their adviser for next year: 4
Percentage of them named Sara(h): 25%
Theses read: 4
Combined total pages of theses: approx. 433
Performances of Don Quijote involving shadow puppets and trapeze artists seen: 1
Faculty meetings: 3
Faculty meetings that ran over the 2 allotted hours: 3
Faculty meetings scheduled during key Tuesday primary contests: 3
Tears shed in my office: 0 (whoo-hoo!)
Total F'07-S'08 regalia wearings: 3
Academic years as Assistant Professor down: 1
Academic years as Assistant Professor to go: TBD
Labels: Amherst, Profa, School daze
posted by SJB at 7:37 PM
4 Comments:
Congrats sjb, that's awesome! I finished teaching a 3 week course on friday and was exhausted. Nothing compared to multi-class full semester. Love your entry about "enamorado...." "But I can't revise, there's a paaartaaae!" Congrats on a job (knowing you) well done.
congratulations.
it really does get easier over time---largely because you grow in confidence and gradually stop worrying about all those difficult questions students in theory could ask (basically you learn 1-that you can think of more difficult and potentially embarassing questions then they can and 2- it's the difficult questions that make the class more interesting and 3--you can handle those questions--really!
Also, if you don't know an answer just make something up. The kids won't know! (That's why they're asking!)
You can't lose. If they call you on it, subtly imply that you control their futures.
I have already learned that a well-timed pause, coupled with a slow crossing of the arms and pulling of the chin and a Socratic "well, what do you think it means?" can do wonders for covering my hide.
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