I can’t believe how long it’s been since my last blog post. I apologize to those who follow WordWorks. It isn’t for lack of ideas. In fact, it may be that there are too many, all tumbling around in my head, none fully “polished” yet.
I have spent the last year teaching various writing classes at the local college. People who haven’t taught simply do not understand what it is like. It’s a lot like Disneyland’s Tea Cup ride. As a semester progresses, the spinning gets faster and more intense. It’s uproariously fun--until it leaves you dizzy and puking as it stops.
I don’t physically vomit at the end of a term, but I do go through a certain malaise, a grieving almost. The classroom becomes a community, almost family. We get to know each other, through interacting, and especially through our writing, which becomes quite personal and intimate as experiences, philosophies, and feelings are related. It is a great loss when it disbands.
A theatre professor early in my own college career impressed upon me that good theatre grabs a person, lifts them, carries them away, and then sets them down, but never quite in the same place. This is what teaching does to me. I hope, and like to think, my students experience somewhat the same thing.
As class work ratchets up, much of my normal life falls by the wayside. Laundry piles up. Dishes. Dust. Correspondence. Classes ended for me in mid-December. It has taken me six weeks to get back to my “normal.” At least my physical normal. I think I am still working on the mental normal. I’m still having classroom “flashbacks,” things I could have done, ideas for future classes, stories and ideas my students have presented--and that we have worked to hone.
I m still waking at 6:00 a.m. (partly because the cat got used to getting his “good stuff” at this time, and begins to pester me if I try to sleep longer). I still feel I should be “doing something” school related--lesson plans, papers.
But I am slowly recalibrating. reorienting toward the writing side of my career. I have realized the two do not blend well and I am not sure why. Perhaps because it is difficult to commit to and meet deadlines--like trying to hit the bull’s eye of a dart board from a spinning teacup. It may also reflect my own somewhat obsessive nature. I like variety, but I like to focus on, and finish, one project at a time.
I will get back in the groove though. I have started with writing this blog post.
