I often wonder that…..
If someone had asked me 10, 15 years ago, where will you be? What will you be doing? The current reality is NOT what I would have described.
The funny thing is that, although I frequently bemoan the tribulations of the day, I also truly enjoy what I’m doing. I am happy for WHERE I am right now. I am happy (most of the time) for my interactions with my students. I enjoy (and simultaneously dread) the intellectual gyrations (read: drain) of CONSTANTLY preparing new courses and content and learning even more about my chosen areas of interest.
I know some of you are chuckling, thinking “I know what she said to me YESTERDAY about…the hassles and inanities perpetrated by her students…the exhaustion of new preps EVERY SEMESTER…the anxieties about research and publications”, which are TRUE, and I still am happy about what I do.
The next year is going to be a challenge for me on a number of levels. First, I’m going to be working on a research project/grant for the first time in a LONG time. It is very invigorating and scary. Second, I am now coordinating a campus-wide CORE curriculum course that needs help. I believe in the educational benefit of the course, but it is going to be a struggle to help it reach its potential. Third, the new campus, its location and inherent “newness” would be difficult, in the best of circumstances.
A wise person once described my life as “Lurching from one crisis to the next”… I like to think of it as acceleration. 🙂
I am sure that if there is anyone that can help the course reach its potential, it is you.
But I will miss you while you do it.