The end is near(ish)

Well that is absolutely the LAST time I'm teaching on Labor Day, harrumph, and you'd better believe I reminded my colleagues of that fact repeatedly yesterday. Laboring on Labor Day is such a tradition here that it's not worth noting its oddness, but I'm definitely eager to abandon the tradition when I retire.

Also: that moment when I'm standing in front of a room full of students attempting to draw a connection between today's reading and something we discussed last week, but it suddenly occurs to me that the previous reading I'm referring to was discussed in an entirely different class. Oops. Never mind. It's nice to make connections across classes, such as when one of my capstone students brings up an example of witty repartee from the Jane Austen class, but when I'm the only one in the room who has been present in both discussions, the connection is broken.

I will not miss that feeling of never getting caught up, the knowledge that the to-do list never ends because the minute I cross off one task, two more will crop up to take its place. And I won't miss the regret that arises from the sudden realization that I've required students in two different classes to turn in a major assignment on the same day. What moron wrote this syllabus?! Oops, that would be me.

I won't miss the necessity of mastering new classroom technology. We now have access to Respondus, a lockdown browser helpful to faculty who want to allow students to use laptops in class but don't want to hand over their writing process to AI. We will all need training on Respondus--except for those of us who will be sashaying out the door at the end of the semester. I long ago exceeded my quota of new technologies to master. Time for someone else to pick up the baton.

But first I have to get through this semester, and we've barely begun the third week. How many days left they ask me, but who's counting? I'm a word person, not a number person, so the answer has to be something like not enough days to complete everything I need to do. 

Ask me again after I've crossed a few more tasks off my list. The end isn't quite near, but I can feel it getting closer by the minute.