not too shabby

Day 14 was LONG... but fantastic!!!

I was at work by 8:30 preparing for my 9am class. The class was too big for the room & the temporary room I was assigned had another class in it, so it looked to be one of “those” days. First class – third year – was advanced beyond my expectations, so the class went by without much effort on their end, but they were all very sweet and seemed glad to be there, which was nice...

Next class was the Master’s class, which ROCKED. Well, as much as a class of 4 girls + me can “rock”. We, too, had a classroom conflict that was tougher to correct than class 1, so we didn’t get started until half past the hour, which left us with a 30-min course. Awesome. But then we talked the whole time about our research interests, places to get materials, and of COURSE, utopian studies! That last part makes me happier than usual because these students actually wanted to learn more about the topic – they were genuinely interested, yay!

Then I had a 5-hr break until my next class. I went back to the office and ran into N – the colleague I had met yesterday – and when I told her how excited I was that the students wanted to know about Utopian Studies, she was curious about it herself, so we talked and she is hoping to have me come in and talk with a few classes about the topic because it would be a good idea for a research project required by many of them... AWESOME! Then I had lunch with Claire, prepped for the evening class, and my break was over... wow.

The last class of the day was another LanSAD 2hr job, but this time I was ready. WHEW. It was another class of all girls – about 12 out of the 18 registered students – and everything went exactly according to plan!!! That never happens! I felt respected, which was fantastic, but we had fun, too... I think... they all fully participated and learned lots of new vocabulary and even took homework with them (we’ll see in a week if they actually DID it). I was bored with the generic intros and decided just to get right to work, but I integrated some “get to know you” questions in throughout the lesson... I think I pulled it off, whew! At the end of class, one girl did come to me concerned that she may not be strong enough in English to stay in the course and I asked her to keep trying and reminded her to not compare herself with the others in the class, but to look for improvement in herself - & she seemed encouraged... don’t know if she’ll return or not, but I feel like I handled things okay...

At the end of the day, X offered a few of us lifts home – so thoughtful! – and I had a supper break at home before heading into town for an evening in at Claire’s with some other lecteur/lectrices. We listened to music, did the tapas/snack thing (which is turning out to be quite an enjoyable tradition!), watched the Ministry of Silly Walks clip from Monty Python on YouTube and debriefed on our past couple days. I must say that after hearing the stories from other depts., I am really, truly grateful to be in the Dept of English!!!

SIDE NOTE: In the afternoon, I was able to talk to my bosses about possibly taking a Friday off in November for a conference in Limerick at UL... looks to be an option, YAY! Now I need to pull together an abstract and see if it gets accepted. It’s in Gender Studies, which is not my area of expertise (or even serious interest), but I did take a Gender Theory course last term and have recently written on Goldsmith at Judy Butler, which was “interesting”... so I am hopeful – and it would just be FANTASTIC if I had a reason to return to the campus!