Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Valerie Green, M.S.
I arrived in my office after today's class to find a box of new business cards. I guess it is the standard procedure to put the degree after the professor's name. So there it was: "Valerie Green, M.S." Kind of weird. Thank goodness I don't have to put it on the nameplate outside my office door. Having to look at that several times a day would be just too strange.
Just Do It
Here's a recipe for stress: start a new teaching job a few weeks before the semester starts, with 5 new classes to teach (4 different curricula), each with a 3-hour lecture, and not in a field of computer technology in which I have much (or in the case of 3 out of 4) any experience. Yessah. That is my life right now.
It can't go on like this forever, because my adrenals will be shot. If next year looks like it will be a repeat of this one, I'll have to quit. Thank goodness for having a fantastic naturopath who is making my body stronger even now. But for a while, the only way I can get through each week with far too many things to do is to make lists of things to do and then just do them, without thought, without emotion, without debating about what is the best way. Just doing them and dispassionately checking them off the list.
It's making me a little emotionless right now, which I generally dislike, but for now it's the only way. But I decided that while I'm being incredibly, coldly productive, I would sneak a few emotionally charged things into my "to do" list so I could dispatch them. Things like "tell X that I was really hurt when he did Y." It does actually work. Things roll off me right now.
I do worry that as they roll off, they're collecting in a big pool somewhere that will drown me when I turn the emotion back on. I also worry that not doing things in absolutely the best way will bite me later. Hmmm. Also, it's been difficult to switch back into emotional sensitivity when I want to, such as when I'm hanging out with friends, family, or A. I haven't figured that out yet.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Graduations
My violin/viola studio recital was on Sunday. What fun to see a year's improvement in my students. I played too, this year, and that was fun. It could have been stressful, playing for all of my students who know what good technique is--but I put on the forehead and the quiet stomach, and everything flowed.
Then on Monday I graduated my latest class of beginning tango dancers. Out of 4 sessions, this class was the one with the highest number of people who don't think of themselves as "movers". But they really were looking good yesterday, leading and following the cruzada like pros. I was so proud.
This is a graduation of sorts for me, too, though less well-defined. After a year of teaching high school, violin, and tango, I definitely feel that I've settled into my role as "teacher". And each of those teaching experiences has been extremely helpful in improving my general teaching skills. I was born to teach, it seems. This is the summer I'll be getting organized, starting to formalize my violin teaching technique and thinking about how to formally assess students and help them set goals. I'm looking to accomplish that for the computer and violin curricula. Tango will have to wait for a bit, but I am thinking about it in odd moments.
This teacher is tired, too. Very tired.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
When it Sucks Not to Have Depth Perception
One word: mosquitos.
