A few years ago I wrote a post called Hot Bananas, about a phrase from my inner monologue that made me laugh one January day. In an apparent mashup of "hot garbage" and "totally bananas," I thought to myself, "The first week of the semester always feels like hot bananas."
I've been thinking about that all week. The bananas are very hot right now, so hot. On this particular evening I'm feeling like I'm dancing on the edge of a volcano filled with superheated bananas, hoping to avoid the spray.
Have I told you anything about my semester? I don't think I have. I'm teaching a 100-level class for a colleague who is out on sabbatical. I've taught it twice before, but not since 2015. I'm also prepping a 200-level class that a retired colleague used to teach. I'm super-excited to teach the content, and I expect that I will probably be able to teach it until I retire if I choose to do so, but it is just a boatload -- no, actually, it's more like an aircraft-carrier-load or perhaps a steaming-caldera-ful -- of work to make a new prep happen for a 4-hour class.
The third class is one I've taught a bunch, so that should be fairly low-stress. (I hope.) I am teaching five days a week this semester, which is a little unusual and not my favorite schedule. It usually works out that I have a day on which I can wear yoga pants and a T-shirt and keep the door to my office closed all day long, but this year it's all dress-up clothes all the time.
Anyway, it will be fine; it will all be fine. I am directing more independent studies than usual, but I'm hopeful that those students will be able to help with a new project in a way that both moves the research forward and teaches the students some things worth knowing. I have a little bit of a situation with my undergrad TAs, but I think it will all work out. I think.
Probably next week I will not get quite so much email (although! we're having exciting times in Gladlyville between the COVID and the monkeypox! lots of folks emailing me about test results!). Probably next week there will be fewer people saying, "Dr. Gladly, can you help me figure out this new thing?" because the things will be less new in week #2 than they are in week #1. Until then, I'll just be over here reminding myself that when life gives you flaming bananas, it might be a good time for bananas Foster.
(If this post seems a little scrambled, it is because three of my kids are having a lively discussion nearby. Overhead, from a teenager arguing with a sibling: "Just because I’m wrong doesn’t mean I’m going to stop arguing!!")
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