First Day

Today is the first day of the semester! I went to campus 4 out of the 5 days last week to get into the swing of the drive and working from my office, but classes are starting today. My classes are on Tuesday/Thursday but I'll be going in today for office hours and to get some writing done.

My office! I have some things on some of the
bookshelves so it looks a little less depressing :)

I definitely have a lot of thoughts and emotions swirling around right now, so this post may seem rather fragmented. Last week was exhausting; more so than expected. I got home around 6ish or so, and all I would want to do is chill on the couch, eat cereal, and retreat into my introverted self. Not at all normal for me (well, I do love cereal) or Matt, so hopefully my energy level will be able to bounce back faster in the coming weeks. 

To sum up my emotional state, I would say I'm excited but also nervous. One of my classes is 122 students and the other is capped at 39. That is A LOT of students, and I have a slight fear of public speaking. You would think me teaching last semester would have gotten rid of it but no, still nervous just thinking about it. 

The one piece of advice I've heard the most has probably been that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I cannot let my perfectionist tendencies come out and expect my classes to be awesome, perfect, engaging, and that all students will love it. That is too high of a bar to set. Instead, the theme for this first year is survival. Seriously. That's what so many of my fellow faculty have told me about this first year. Survive because it will just feel like a blur. Not exactly encouraging, but everyone has also said I can call/email/visit them whenever and they are there for me, so at least I'm not alone. Plus prayer. And Matt. And exercise. 

So this guy stayed with us for a little under 24 hours last week. He was lost and we couldn't find his owners (PLEASE MICROCHIP YOUR PET!), so we kept him as long as we could until we had to have the city get him. He was the sweetest thing though so I'm 150% confident he will be adopted quickly.

I feel like my university is offering me so much support and they want me to succeed, I just have to navigate and learn my way around these new responsibilities, utilizing the resources that I can.  Learning the balance between teaching preparations and research obligations is certainly challenging and I'm kind of at a loss of how to know when I'm doing it right. Figuring out the social dynamics with my fellow faculty, with the students, with the administrators, etc. Figuring out how much work to do at night and on the weekends, balanced against spending quality time with my husband and keeping our house in a reasonable state. All decisions that will have to be discerned. 

Basically there is a lot of change. I will try to keep this blog updated as to my progress with this transition along with anything interesting we're doing. We'll be celebrating my brother's birthday this weekend so I'm really excited to spend quality time with my family. I know I will have work to do, but I'm not sure even at this point how much and how to balance that with actually seeing my family. 

OK, enough stream of consciousness for one post. I hope you are all having a great August and welcome to the beginning of a new school year!