Excuse me while…
by Sharon Tjaden-Burkes
I hyperventilate.
As my personal, career, and writing lives all collide in massive, continuous explosions for the next three weeks.
Round one of quizzes/tests/assessments.
Midterm grades.
Midterm conferences.
Oh yeah, and keep teaching.
Coordinating, coordinating, coordinating.
Presenting to university faculty. Presenting at a conference.
Meet and plan class with the practicum student. She needs to start teaching in two weeks!
Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop (and all the lesson planning for subs so I can attend said workshop).
TESOL 2016 Convention (and all the lesson planning for subs so I can attend said convention).
Flights. Hotels. Taxis and mass transit. Receipts, receipts, expense report within the week please!
You’ve been selected to be observed by one of the reviewers for our accreditation! They’ll need a lesson plan. Can you submit it before you leave for TESOL?
Don’t forget your performance review is coming up! Everything needs to be updated. Tell us everything that you did in the past year to develop yourself. And you need new goals for next year. Got to keep growing!
Church get-togethers.
That one kid’s birthday party.
Can you get the groceries before you come home on Friday? I guess after that dinner you’re going to?
More diapers. Oh my God, enough with the diapers already! Sit on the potty every time! I know you’re doing it at school!
Post-Its hanging from the sides of my computer monitor. Post-Its hanging from the bottom of other Post-Its.
I’m surrounded by Post-Its.
It’s a kind of nightmare–all these reminders of things to not forget.
I realize in a few weeks, I’ll be fine. I’ll be thankful to have had all of these opportunities. I’ll feel like, What was the big deal anyway?
But right now, hyperventilating.
Okay. Now, I’m done.
Onward.
Becoming Mother 
I feel the same way right now. I teach at a community college so no research/writing deadlines, but we have all these professional development and curriculum development tasks to juggle. Hang in there! Personally, I don’t think the madness will end until May 😉
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A fellow academic! Where do you teach, if you don’t mind me asking?
I wish our madness ends in May. I’m on an 11-month contract and teach all the way until July 1. But, hey, I still get some time away until mid-August, so I’ll take it. 🙂
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I teach English at Odessa College in Odessa, TX; it’s a small minority majority community college. What about you? Glad you have some time off! 🙂
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I teach English also–but to international students. I’m at University of Dayton in Ohio. I just looked up where Odessa, TX. You really are out there in the middle of pretty much nothing, right? 🙂
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Yea, pretty much! Haha. Let’s just say we use our Netflix subscription A LOT. Some people I went to grad school with did their MAs at University of Dayton.
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What a small world! 🙂
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[…] just kind of converged into one hot, continuous mess for the past three weeks. As I mentioned in a previous post, I knew I would feel better once I had gotten past these last few weeks, but I’ve forgotten […]
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