A colleague and I were comparing notes on our classes today and we agreed that things are going well--maybe too well. "I must be overlooking something important," I said, "because it feels somehow wrong to be enjoying the semester this much."
It's true that I'm a little swamped. I'm teaching an overload, so three days a week I feel as if I'm running from one class to another without any time to take a breath, and on the other two days I'm preparing for the busy days. But so far, I'm managing to get most of my work done without taking a pile of it home. Things may change in February when we have job candidates visiting one after another, but so far, the load is not unpleasant.
And more importantly, I'm really enjoying my time in class. I'm teaching material I love, and the students seem to be responding pretty well. Today I gave the first quiz in the film class, so I'll soon know whether the students are keeping up with the reading assignments or slacking off on the assumption that film is "just entertainment" and they don't need to know all those big words like "duration" and "diegesis." I have decided not to let the slackers bother me. If they don't engage with the material, they will fail the course, which is really their problem and not mine.
So either my semester is going really really well or else I'm living in denial, which is not entirely a bad place to be. It's the old conundrum: is there any real difference between believing that you are happy and actually being happy?
I believe I'd rather not answer that.
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