May Term
I am now smack dab in the middle of what I heard about from my friend who had this college gig before me, but didn't appreciate at the time ... May Term. May Term is a semester jammed into 3 1/2 weeks. The students are only allowed to take one class. (Of course the Over Achieving Stress-Monkeys can get special dispensation to take more then one if they get down on their masochistic knees and beg and beg. Sheesh! What is it with kids today?) The classes then meet for three hours, Monday to Friday. I'm teaching Playwrighting.
I've never taught Playwrighting before, never even taken a playwrighting class, but no one seemed worried about that other than I. Strangely enough, once again they were right. With some help from some legitimate Playwrighting Teacher friends, it's so far going well. It's all skin-of-my-teeth, seat-of-my-pants teaching, though. My class meets from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. This would be a cool schedule, spending the rest of the day preparing for the next, if it weren't for ... you guessed it. Something else has come up.
The department also runs its student-directed one-acts during May Term. One of my students chose a three-hander with a father, mother, and a daughter. Since this is a women's college, the unofficial rule is, as the only male in the department, if there's a role I can take in a department show, I take it. So now, I have rehearsals for an hour every night.
This gives me time to drive back home, lunch, errand (Why isn't there a verb, "to errand"? It feels like a verbish thing to do. "I've got a lot of erranding to get done." "I'm going to spend all afternoon erranding."), take a nap, frantically spend a couple hours cobbling something together for class the next day, and then get back for rehearsal. That's Monday - Friday, and then I work at the wineshop Friday night and Saturday all day. I swear I'm going to get thrown out of the slacker club.
Still, I am in good (if not a little distracted) spirits. The class, as I said, is going well so far against all odds. And there are a whole lot worse things I could be doing.
I've never taught Playwrighting before, never even taken a playwrighting class, but no one seemed worried about that other than I. Strangely enough, once again they were right. With some help from some legitimate Playwrighting Teacher friends, it's so far going well. It's all skin-of-my-teeth, seat-of-my-pants teaching, though. My class meets from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. This would be a cool schedule, spending the rest of the day preparing for the next, if it weren't for ... you guessed it. Something else has come up.
The department also runs its student-directed one-acts during May Term. One of my students chose a three-hander with a father, mother, and a daughter. Since this is a women's college, the unofficial rule is, as the only male in the department, if there's a role I can take in a department show, I take it. So now, I have rehearsals for an hour every night.
This gives me time to drive back home, lunch, errand (Why isn't there a verb, "to errand"? It feels like a verbish thing to do. "I've got a lot of erranding to get done." "I'm going to spend all afternoon erranding."), take a nap, frantically spend a couple hours cobbling something together for class the next day, and then get back for rehearsal. That's Monday - Friday, and then I work at the wineshop Friday night and Saturday all day. I swear I'm going to get thrown out of the slacker club.
Still, I am in good (if not a little distracted) spirits. The class, as I said, is going well so far against all odds. And there are a whole lot worse things I could be doing.
posted by - caj at 7:33 AM
2 Comments:
wow, i love the "errand as a verb" concept. may i steal with attribution? ;-) (especially when L gives me grief: "no mama, no go errands! Need Watch Movie!")
-nif
Verbing weirds language.
Also, get the hell out of the slacker club!
Though, time should still be made for (re)constructive slacking.
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