You know for sure that you will be there now?
Yeah, none of the job applications this summer have panned out, and it's too close to the start of the semester to give notice now.
Packet, schmacket. Just do what I do and have the students buy a $150 textbook at the crookstore, er, I mean bookstore.
Funny, I'm on the exact same boat in that exact same river.
You know Dr B, I totally think you should make your students get that Calculus book.
Sorry, that "test" was me. Bad cookie.
ah, no problemo.
just assign alfred korzybski's "science and sanity" and tell them not to bother you until they're done. it's deeply relevant in any discipline.
i jest, of course.
somehow I don't think the fact that I have managed to score a research-only position would go down well if I should mention it ...
so I won't ...
I do feel for you B, I love the university over these months, its so nice and quiet, just us insane phd students (even most of the masters students leave) and faculty are here ... whole campus feels lovely and peaceful ...
then the undergrads come back ... bleh.
hmm. Calculus is kind of like linguistics. It's o-week next week and I'm not over my fieldwork reverse culture shock yet. And the textbook for my other course isn't ready. I know, because I'm writing it...
Adjuncts in Arts and Sciences here get around $5,000 for each course they teach; that's also the extra pay for lecturers teaching an extra course. I think what I will do this year is devote that portion of my time to teaching and deem the rest of the time research time. That would work out about 1 day a week, more or less, for teaching, on the assumption that $10,000 of my salary is for teaching and the rest is for research.
(Just kidding, but I can dream, can't I?)
I always get sick when the undergrads come back. I mean literally ill with a cold. Invariably. They bring back all their germs from around the country and infect poor defenseless me.
How about if they spend the first few weeks of the class "researching" in the library to make up a reading packet? Hone their library skills, make them autonomous researchers, save yourself some stress... 
PS if my dean is reading this, I'm KIDDING! My course packs are in! Well, two of them, so far.
packets? That's what blackboard is for - you don't have to make final decisions about articles until the week before they are due, and then just post 'em!
Classes start here in a matter of days, and I have not yet revised my syllabus or anything. I too am in that same river.
calculus is not at all like linguistics. calculus is like music ... you look at the page and you can hear the notes ...
linguistics is like forcibly reversing all of your senses ... squishing your eyeballs until you can see into the back of your head, tearing your skin off and reversing it so you feel the inside of your body ... and seeing that the world around you is not at all like you imagined ... or can ever see the same way again ...
calculus holds itself, shivering in naked space. linguistics is like using words to hold words, or trying to use thoughts to hold a thought ... and it makse my brain light itself on fire. i like it, but it makes me crazy.
that's what i think.
Hi there. I found your link through a blog I stumbled upon at blog advance. It's so refreshing to see someone I agree with! Your blog is great.
Interesting description, /e. I wasn't quite so violently affected when I got my linguistics degree . . . but I like the way you talk about calculus.
Oh, I got distracted by /e's comment. Meant to say, I'm sorry you're still stuck in Dullsville, B. Hang in there!
Surprised nobody else has mentioned the first-day-of-class anxiety dreams yet. Mine was, class had begun and I was wearing the wrong clothes and had bedhead, and was trying to fix my hair in the reflection of a window before I "went on." I'm feelin ya, Dr. B.
I got my BA and Phd at a school on the quarter system, with the civilized late September start date.
But I appear destined to spend my career at a school that starts up at ungodly times like Aug. 22.
As always, I put my book order last spring per some strange bookstore/department secretary rule. And every fall, I call the bookstore, to find out what I assigned.
I'm currently at a school where the spring semester starts in February and the Fall semester never starts until after Labor Day. That's pretty nice.
Dr.B., I cannot believe your post here. I'm in the same boat too! Must go to a departmental meeting tomorrow a.m. to find out all about how the new college's dean has decided the "new direction" we will be taking in teaching our undergrad journalism students this semester. I've had the whole luxurious summer off and have done nothing but get up late, blog, smoke, blog, smoke, blog some more. I can hardly STAND the thought of going back into the classroom. Have been trying all summer to get a clerk's job at the local library for crissake so I can drop the whole thing, and NADA. They're like the Mafia or something here.
Oh well. Misery loves company.
Right there witcha, Dr. B, Dave, and Nicky. First day back on campus in a few hours. And I forgot to get the program secretary the bottle of vodka he wanted in exchange for having helped me with grade-change forms.
Wow - I too am returning to the office today to get serious about the looming semester! I also just returned east yesterday after several weeks on the west coast, so my internal clock wants to know what the hell is so important I got up at 5AM for it.
But now, I'm an old hand second-year faculty member, so this semester will be a breeze, right?
Thats why I always leave an asterick at the end of my syllabus.
Lalalalalalallalalalallalalalalala. I can't hear you...
Same boat here, too, except I'm doing it for the first time. Syllabus? What's that? When was I supposed to put my book order in? I guess we're getting everything from Blackboard. Now I just have to teach myself how to use it.
After a summer of living in Europe, learning German and conference-going, I had forgotten about the constant low-level (and the high level) anxiety that comes with this life. Crapaloo.
uh...What?
It's unfortunate that you are stuck, but it is a good thing for your students to have such an instructor.
I'm in the same boat, too. My, it's awfully crowded in here...
Eh, the financial aid stuff I've been complaining about (mostly on my own space) has finally, at least it looks that way, pulled through and I might be moving in today.
Classes start on Wednesday. I envy those that have September starting dates, but at least I get a fall break about half way into the semester, and I get out in early December to boot.
It'll all work out, and anyways, your students might not mind not having out-of-book assignments for a while. On the first day say, "have you checked the bookstore?... neither have I!" You are human too. We don't, or at least those at my school don't, expect profs to always have everything perfectly ready.
can't find the comp II textbook. all of the other textbooks are on the shelf (ok, they've been gathered and are now on the shelf). just called the publisher and begged for new desk copy. that should make my copy show up soon. still, must write the syllabus without the book in front of me. but I have until next Monday. ages.
I find that the actual teaching isn't so bad - it's the getting ready that is dreck. Maybe you could make the students each responsible for finding an article? I am trying that in my grad class...
Did MY professors feel this way immediately before school started in late September? Yikes!
Love coming here an reading the posts...I'm a youngin, just finished undergrad. I've decided I want to go on to grad school and eventually give teaching a shot...but you folks never fail to make me second (and third and fourth and fifth) guess that decision.
Oh well...what have I got to lose?? haha
*gulp* starting to teach my first class in a little under two weeks. the syllabus is mostly done, but the course packet? well, it'll all work out somehow...
my institution requires you to get the course materials in oh .... 5 months before the course starts ... now lets see five months before the course starts that wouldn't fall in the middle of my teaching schedule would it?
Based on the blogs I've read here over the last month or so, I'll bet you are one fantastic teacher. Good luck with this year's transition.
It IS really crowded in this damn boat...
I have the same feeling everytime I get back from summer "break" (it's never a real break though is it? Just a chance to catch up on crap you didn't do in the year, or research, or...). It's ABD this year, but the dread still remains... nothing like TAing to make you wonder why the hell you want to teach...
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