If you fair readers have ever experienced the pleasure of seeing the episode of Saved By The Bell entitled "Jessie's Song," in which Jessie gets addicted to "drugs" (i.e. No Doz), then you will understand the reference in the title. If not...consider yourself very unlucky and guy buy seasons I and II of SBTB immediately.
This week has brought an interesting mix of downtime and sheer terror as I look into the upcoming weeks. On the bright side, the evil busy work of student teaching has subsided. I haven't made my portfolio yet, in part because my professor is lazy and cannot manage to get me comments on her observation in a timely manner, but everything is nicely tucked into an accordion file ready to be sorted and placed ever-so-gently into page protectors when the time comes ("the time" being Thanksgiving break).
On the other hand, I have started looking forward to the upcoming few weeks, and for the time being, they appear a little insane. I have a group project and individual critique on the same topic due next week in class, and graduate research project that is a proportionally small part of my grade, but a huge part of fright due by the end of the semester. For said research paper (which is, incidentally, for my elective class, Young Adult Literature), the professor has told us that his goal for this particular paper is submission to an English journal. Um...I write APA style. I haven't touched MLA since high school. This is daunting. Tonight, Professor Moore asked me where I was on my project. My response? "It is currently non-existent." This is not entirely true. I have a lot of resources, and have been picking slowly through young adult novels on my theme (which is "Non-'problem' presentations of homosexuality in young adult literature"), but I haven't started seriously researching any of the literature on the topic, other than to read the novels themselves. Yikes.
Then there are two sets of gifted classroom observations due for two different classes (can we say redundant) which need to be scheduled and reflected upon. In the end, I know this will all be fine, but having been out of town to Notre Dame last weekend, which was wonderful and worth every minute NOT spent studying, and being out of town again this weekend for the National Association for Gifted Children convention, my loss of weekends for school work has been causing slight freakouts.
Just keep breathing.
On a totally different note, I've started to come to terms with the fact that I probably won't teach next year. On the one hand, this bums me out because I have always envisioned myself as a teacher, at least in the recent past. On the other hand, part of me is filled with glee: no lesson plans, no referrals, no early-early mornings, no Sunday night "Crap, I have to go to school tomorrow, I feel sick" feelings in the pit of my stomach. I think I'm going to find an equally thankless and poverty-ridden yet also rewarding job for some kind of non-profit (probably the liberal and progressive kind, what, with being in Vermont and all). The prospect of NOT being in the classroom fills me with equal parts sadness and joy. Teaching really is a job that requires a love-hate relationship...at least, the kind of teaching I did in Louisiana.
Off to be productive. No, seriously. Stop laughing. Interpreting Young Adult Literature, here I come.
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