To the Gallows

No matter how much I love teaching and how long I teach, the first day is always torture -- or at least the thought of the first day is always torture. To see me the day before classes start or the first day of class, you would think I was a doomed woman, sentenced at the very least to a life of hard labor if not to death. How can something that fulfills me in so many ways also torment me? Well, the Buddha said that whatever causes great joy also has the potential to cause great suffering, so maybe that's it. Or maybe it's just first-day jitters, this semester exacerbated by the obstacles I had in attempting to prepare.

When my power finally came back on yesterday, my printer wouldn't work. I had papers ready to print out for first-day use. Instead, I sent them to my email. Unfortunately, the power had gone out at my campus too and had interfered with various technology. I couldn't open my email; my password didn't work and I couldn't log on at all. In any job one has done for a long time, one has most certainly learned to roll with the changes, and that's exactly what I did. I re-created on the white-board as much of the written material as I could remember, and we did a class exercise and discussion based on that. It worked so well in the first class that I had relaxed a bit in the second class; it worked even better there.

The first day is always the worst! At the other university where I'm teaching, I'll have another first day next week. But it will be easier (I think) and the classes that started today should be on track next week. A friend is coming over this week to help with some of the more manageable tasks around the house. I'd rather do what I can on my own (and pay her for her help) than have my contractor do all the work. That way, I'll have more to spend on the tile and countertops. This makes more sense than paying the contractor to do relatively simple labor (painting, etc.) and to move furniture and boxes from one end of the house to the other while he puts down the tile. Tomorrow afternoon my friend and I will launch that effort, and we'll continue until it's finished. Having a nicer environment will make me feel less overwhelmed, which will in turn allow me to complete my work with fewer distractions.