Year 2 of the New Job

Well, I haven't really blogged at all since getting my job here at Southern Football School in Big College Town. The first semester last year was crazy busy, mostly due to all the prep involved in teaching a new grad course, but also due to the pleasures of taking most Saturdays off to participate in all the football hoopla. Last year, I went to 4 games and watched every other game on tv except for one when I was at a conference back home north of the 49th. The 2-2 teaching load and the football hoopla combined into a magical weekly moment that actually allowed me to take time off from work guilt-free. It's just what people do around here, and it's more crazy to try to fight it than to participate in the crazy hoopla. You just gotta go with it and have fun, which I did!

The second semester was pretty busy too, even though I was teaching two sections of a course I'd already taught before. That was on purpose so that I could spend the semester writing a hugely important conference paper (think biggest platform in my discipline) which in the longer-than-presented version has become the new conclusion to my book, so that was productive.

This summer my initial goal had been to write the first two new chapters of my book, but between the fun of being home with all my friends for the summer and the realisation of the simple reality that writing two new chapters was an overly ambitious goal, I quickly revised that down to just writing one, which I almost did. I got a good 30-some pages written and just have about 3-4 more left to go to wrap it up, but I haven't even opened the document to look at my writing since I came back to Big College Town in August.

And now football season is upon us again. Today I'm watching commentary about football on tv, then hoping to take advantage of 4 different invitations to meet up with people (3 drinking wine on the patio parties and 1 bar meet-up) all before the game at 6pm, and then off to the stadium to take in all the action, which promises to be intense. One of the big reasons I moved here was the upgrade from a 3-3 to a 2-2 load, and the reduced load really does make one helluva difference in the quality of one's life. Who knew that one could actually take a day off each weekend?!

That said, tomorrow will be back to prepping, prepping, and more prepping. I've got a new grad course this semester, which thoroughly kicks my butt each week--partly because I assigned too many readings, and partly because I'm lucky enough to have two really smart PhDs and a bunch of really eager and talkative MAs this time around, so it's a challenge keeping one step ahead of them, but always really fun and engaging. And next semester I've got yet another entirely new grad course to prep--and so far I've got nothing more than a 1-line description and a list of plays, nothing else even remotely conceived at all. Ah well, without all the football, second semester promises to yield more work time... although, I'm also co-chairing a hiring committee this year. Yikes! It will be my second time on a hiring committee, and it's always a bit weird to be on the other side of the table. Still, MLA is in L.A., so that should be fun!