Spring Semester Schedule Tweaks

 You guys. There are many, many things I love about my life. But! Being home by myself for 3 days every week while I shuttle kids and juggle the house and my (FULL TIME THO YOU GUYS) job? NOT SOMETHING I LOVE. I actually actively dislike it. I am trying not to wish the time away or be bummed out all the time, but things are stressful. And not changing any time soon. SO. I am going to just sort of life hack myself into a better place. (Sustainable? No. Ok for now? Yes).

Instead of heading into another semester with THE SAME STRESSORS and thing that aren't working, I have tried to evaluate what's not working for me and, erm, fix it. This is a little like solving for the effects of a problem instead of the causes of the problem, but whatever. 

I thought maybe this heatless curler thing would be a tweak, but then I realized that I immediately run when I wake up and all is lost **eye roll**

This semester, I have:

a large lecture course with 1 TA that meets twice a week. I lecture and grade attendance exercises and the exams. My TA leads discussions and grades the final project and all its components and other work.

a huge lecture course with 3 TAs that meets once a week. I lecture and grade attendance exercises, and the TAs lead discussion that focuses on 4 large written assignments, which they grade.

a ginormous public speaking course with 600+ students taught by 14 TAs. I do not teach this course, but I do design it, develop all materials and assessments for it, and lead all the TA training-- we meet weekly as a teaching team.

Anyway. Here are a few things I am changing this semester

1. My teaching schedule. 

The problem: back-to-back teaching days made it easy to get totally wrong-footed for the whole week if any issues arose in the mornings (AND THEY DID YOU GUYS)

The solution: a day in between to do work that can easily fall through the cracks.

I have a large lecture class Monday and Wednesday mornings and a HUGE lecture class on Monday at noon, followed by a grad student meeting in the afternoon (I have been attending this meeting as a grad student or leading it as a grown up person since 2003). I have a full day in between teaching to prep for the following week instead of teaching 2 days in a row like I did last semester. 

My plan is to use Tuesdays to grade the weekly assignment I am in charge of for the huge class (TAs grade the rest) and prep for the following Monday, plus assemble a weekly email for both classes that I'll schedule to go out on Fridays. Then on Thursdays, I will use my work block time to reconcile attendance from the large class, grade the weekly participation assignment in that class, deal with any committee work, and triage my email. 

In both the large class and the huge class, I just lecture and drop the mic with TAs to grade the longer written assignments, but I like to stay on top of what the students are doing through weekly assignments that I call case studies in the huge class and attendance questions in the large class. In both cases they are critical thinking exercises that require students to have been in class if they want to compete them for full points. They won't be able to answer the questions completely from Canvas materials alone. Even though I take attendance in this sneaky way, I also use the roll call function on Canvas and pass around an attendance sheet-- then I have to use the sheet to check off roll call attendance on Canvas. This is busy work that I do not want to take on for the huge course (2.5 tikes bigger than the large course), so I use case studies that are worth more points.

They key is to NOT FALL BEHIND on grading these small things. It really does not take long to do one, but if I have 3 weeks worth sitting there? Ugh. Takes forever and I always add a procrastination shame spiral. SO! Tuesday for the huge class and Thursday for the large class.

2. Fridays

The problem: this should have been a focused work day for me, but I ended up squandering it and watching Ben work with no distractions and feeling stabby

The solution: GO TO CAMPUS ON FRIDAY FFS

I am going to campus every Friday for my work block and am going to try to actively schedule meetings for this day. I tried to get the 3 TAs for my huge class to have our weekly meeting on this day, but they were not thrilled about it, so I did not press the issue. We are meeting on Wednesdays, and my large class TA and I will meet on Mondays, which is the same day I meet with the grad students who teach my ginormous public speaking class. And really? This is super smart because if kids are sick or something, I only have to be on campus 2 days-- surely even I can scrape together 2 days every week, right?

Last semester I ended up doing house and kid stuff while working on Fridays and just felt pissed off about it. I think I will enjoy working away from all the people and things who need me to take care of them on this day, too.

3. Wednesday leave time

The problem: This was a Tuesday last semester, but the same problem: I would not leave until all the morning house work was done and it really cut into my work time AND I still had bullshit housework to do when I got home anyway.

The solution: Kids do more (incentivized by their Green Light cards) and also I just WALK AWAY because I can lump "morning" work into the afternoon laundry and activity pack-up scramble.

I am committing to leaving the house at 8 on Wednesdays no matter what. This one is going to be hard, but I think if I an manage to leave when Dorothy and Cooper walk to the bus (I can walk them to the bus with Annabel, but I need to come home, stick her in her house, and drive away-- no running back inside), it will be a game changer. If the house looks like we were robbed/raptured up during breakfast, I can deal with it when I get home.  If I can manage to get home 45 minutes before Minnie is out, I should have time to get my shit together for the afternoon onslaught, and having a solid 75 minutes in my office before my large class? Would be AWESOME.

4. Walking schedule?

Problem: Dawn and dusk when I might get eaten by a bobcat

Solution: Probably not changing anything, TBH, but def worried about being eaten by a bobcat.

We have a BOBCAT in the neighborhood you guys. A REALLY BIG ONE. Which might explain why the place is lousy with half bunnies, huh? But bobcats like dawn and dusk. WHEN I AM OUT WITH MY TINY SNACKY DOG. **yikes face**

5. Takeout

Problem: Some nights dinner is impossible and I get really stressed

Solution: Garbage food

Why was I such a hero about eating at home last semester? NO IDEA. But! Culvers on the way home from dance on Tuesdays and Milios on the way to dive on Wednesdays? JUST MAKES SENSE. (For the kids-- I am not a fan, but that's also OK)

Problems yet to be solved:

1. Packing up Cooper's high maintenance after school snack (very ragey when he won't eat it; no time for him to do it himself since he is out of school at 4:25. He will only eat a hot meal and if he doesn't eat, he gets really shaky and often gets hurt at practice and sometimes he doesn't like what I brought or the temp is off and he's not "able" to eat and it's so stressful-- this one really sucks).

2. Spending so many hours driving back and forth across town in bad weather and bad traffic. (Maybe Minnie and I need to listen to Rachel McAdams read us Anne of Green Gables?

3. Lunch packing. It's not as easy as let them eat at school or make them do it-- that's easy to say but harder to put into practice. 

4. Never being off duty Tuesday-Thursday. People's schedules are a mess, and there is often a third dinner shift happening at 9pm, which means I am working as a mom from 6:40 when Minnie wakes up until 10pm and have zero time to relax. ZERO.