A Near Miss!!!

Ack! I ALMOST went to bed without blogging! No doubt, I would have made-up with a tardy post tomorrow and I KNOW the world would not have noticed had I missed an entry, but Dr J-Fletch noted the benefits of committing to the discipline of writing a little every day…for one full month. I am not generally flawless with such things. I usually find myself playing catch-up a bit here and there…but I do adore month-long challenges. And there’s just something that makes me happy about not having missed a post yet. With just TWO more required posts and no infractions thus far, it would have gnawed at me had I missed tonight’s entry.

Silly, but…

So, what am I up to today? Chipping away at my LSU To-DO list…

I’ve been working on the “final” for my 17th/18th century course. I seem to have reverted back to some uneasy habits. To be more specific, I am taking FAR too long and making things far too complicated. The assignment, though vague, was to respond in written format to the material covered in the classroom. The task should have taken two hours, the time we would have been allotted for an in-class exam. From what I understand, the response should be roughly 5 pages, double-spaced.

Because we jumped around so much in the class, and because some material was omitted and some material was covered in a hit-and-run manner, I have been unsure as how to approach the assignment.

I finally decided to just follow the syllabus even though the syllabus doesn’t map the track we took in class. I am already well beyond five pages and haven’t gotten a quarter of the way through the syllabus. What I believe I NEED to do, is to be more general. Responding, in detail, to everything on the syllabus would not be possible if I were crafting a written response to the course IN the classroom, with a two-hour limit.

SO…I believe I am going to modify the format and start giving short identification-style descriptions for key practitioners/movements/treatises. Why am I making this difficult for myself when I have so much on my plate? I have two plays to write, grading, class assignments and a boat-load of reading. MUST. EASE. UP.

On another note, I feel shy saying this but I got another nice compliment in my 1020 class this afternoon. After I released everyone, the usual gathering of 5 or 6 random folks gathered to ask questions. I recognized one of the people as having been really engaged and involved in the discussion we’d had. He introduced himself and told me how much he enjoyed the afternoon. Apparently, he has a friend in the class and had heard a lot about me, so he decided to crash the lecture. He was really glowing and specific in his compliments and asked if I’d be teaching the course next semester. It made me smile.

I really hope I can find a class to teach while I am dissertating.
Teaching fuels me.