September 22, 2008

• The End of Ambition

  I've run out of steam. It's not quite 9am yet. I let my class out early this morning because I had quite exhausted everything I could say about how to respond to an essay. I think I knew last night as I was preparing the lesson plan how my day would go. I think I knew this morning too, which could be why I overcompensated with a pair of nice gray slacks and my black pointy-toed flats. Pointy-toed shoes, after all, are a sign of the competence and preparedness that teachers must have. Lets hope they were all looking at my shoes and not listening to me today. My steam is officially gone.

  I still like teaching tons more this semester than I did a few months ago, the terror having subsided. But I'm tired most of the time now, and more than likely when I'm on campus I'm daydreaming about being asleep. On an island somewhere. I had a nice amount of ambition for this semester (and I suspect I'll get it back at some point), so much so that I volunteered my free time (ha!) to run an informal class for ESL students where we sit around discussing things like marriage in America and where our names come from. I also decided to audit a third class, so that even though I already had two classes worth of reading to do on a weekly basis (reading a Victorian novel a week is not the business by the way) I now have three classes worth of reading to do (though if its any consolation I don't have to write the lengthy seminar paper at the end). I took some good advice and overextended myself, made it so that I would barely have time to sit in my apartment and watch paint dry (I did actually, at one point, consider painting a wall in my apartment), and I am grateful because I'm already a much more well rounded person. But I am tired. And I haven't even really gotten into the swing of all the other things I really have to do (applications to PhD programs, studying for my comprehensive exam in January).

  I miss my steam. I am going to go the bookstore to buy a book I desperately need, I am going to walk to my car and go home, and despite the little voice in my head opining that I had much, much better things to do, I am going back to sleep.

  • 9:04 am
  • 7 Comments