Attack of the anxiety dreams

Classes start in three days so right on time the anxiety dreams are arriving. Last night I was responsible for protecting a group of vulnerable people from a zombie attack, but I couldn't get anyone to follow instructions. "You have to rub this stinky herb all over you to repel the zombies," I kept telling them, but they just said, "No thanks, I'm good" and wandered off to become zombie fodder.

I don't know if this reflects anxiety about my upcoming classes or my previous ones. Getting students to follow instructions is difficult in any semester, but their noncompliance doesn't generally result in zombie attacks. Instead, it results in snarky comments on course evaluations from students who don't understand requirements of certain assignments or who are unhappy that I'm not at their beck and call 24/7. What they really need is an AI prof who will respond to calls for help at 2 a.m., but if I created such an avatar, it would soon get tired of saying "The answers are on the syllabus."

The zombies may have arisen from the reading list for my upper-level literature class this spring, which includes Zone One, Colson Whitehead's zombie novel. I've taught that novel before, but the last time I taught the Colson Whitehead class was in spring 2020, when we suddenly had to move our classes online during spring break and reinvent everything in response to Covid-19. Talk about apocalyptic! I've been looking forward to the opportunity to focus an entire class on Whitehead again without the pandemic disruptions, and I'm so thoroughly prepared that there's really nothing to get anxious about. 

And my other class should be a piece of cake: American Lit Survey, which I've taught nearly every spring since 2001. It's a full class (19 students!) and I'll have to be on the lookout for AI-produced essays, but otherwise it's a course I love to teach even though the students keep me on my toes.

I keep reminding myself that angst and dread arrive faithfully about a week before each semester starts but they dissipate as soon as I step into the classroom. Deep inside, though, I don't quite believe it. Every semester troubling emotions come lumbering out of my nightmares with bloody fingers outstretched to grab and eat my brains, but I can't seem to locate the stinky herb that will protect me from their depredations. The only cure, it seems, is to get back into the classroom.