I’ve been working feverishly on syllabi and thinking about all the interesting ideas, activities, and projects I want to engage students in over the coming semester. All that being said, I look at my notes and my documents and my designs and feel overwhelmed with all the new I’m going to be learning along with all the new faces and places I’m going to be meeting and exploring. It is all I can do to keep myself from sitting on the couch and staring into space at all the new.
I suppose this is the month out/night before school jitters that I’ve learned to expect and almost appreciate. Once I get in the swing of things, kinks will work out, surprises will emerge, and there will be a new beginning again. If only I could keep all that perspective at the forefront of my thoughts enough to quiet them and capture a worker-bee-like buzz.
Things I do to chill myself out in these moments of pre-semester jitters:
1. Log in to Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp.
2. Check texts, email & write friends about totally unrelated writing, research, and life projects.
3. Blog.
4. Review a new book I’d like to use.
5. Make todo lists of tiny things I can do to move forward when I’m overwhelmed or brain dead.
6. Search for chocolate.
7. Calendar things.
8. Go to bed.
9. Take a shower.
10. Go for a run.
The vulnerable professor 