I've blogged about many important political, social and feminist issues but today I just want to use this blog to complain and have my readers feel sorry for me. :-) Maybe somebody faced a similar problem and can offer advice. That would be very welcome.
This semester, my Monday teaching schedule is insane. My first class that I teach in Spanish starts at 11 am. This means that I come to work at least an hour before to prepare and go over things I want to do in class. This first class is very innovative and interactive, so I have to work very hard to make it happen. Then, I teach a long lecture-type class in English from 1:30 to 2:45. After that, I have to teach my graduate course (in Spanish, of course) from 4:30 to 7:20 pm. The rest of the week is easy, but this Monday schedule literally kills me. The day after that (Tuesday) I feel completely wiped out physically and intellectually.
Maybe something is wrong with me, I don't know. Surely, one is not supposed to feel so drained after only one day of such schedule? The thing is that I can't teach a half-assed class, no matter how tired I am and how drained I will feel as a result. I never sit down in a class unless students are writing an exam or a mini-quiz and I always give every ounce of energy to teaching. Switching between languages (neither of which is my native language) several times in a row doesn't help either. Also, the last and the longest class of the day is the most challenging one. We read very complex Golden Age texts and getting the students to understand them and enjoy them is very energy-consuming.
I have only had three of these horrible Mondays this semester and there are many more to come. Honestly, I have no idea how I will be able to make it until the end of the semester. I tried doing everything I can think of to relax and rest the day before: cooking (yes, that relaxes me), reading murder mysteries (and that does as well), taking long baths. Still, after Monday classes end, I am a total wreck.
What should I do, people? Any advice and/or encouragement will be highly appreciated. :-)
12 comments:
Large doses of vitamin B complex and DHEA help me deal with stress, as does d-ribose. Coffee between classes sometimes helps, but not always; it is unpredictable. A little exercise is also sometimes helpful, if I can manage time for it between classes.
Thank you, Pagan Topologist! Coffee is actually part of the problem for me because I start guzzling it uncontrollably until I get all shaky and weird. But I think it might be a good idea for me to take walks around the lake between classes instead of sitting in a windowless stuffy office.
How come the grad course is scheduled so late? Is that a common practise?
Anonymous: Our graduate students work all day long (they are all teachers of Spanish in high schools in the area.) We have to schedule all graduate courses to begin at 4:30 and even then many of them have to come in late. So this kind of scheduling is really unavoidable.
In the past when I have a schedule that puts a lot of crazy things in one day, I try to make the day after a day I don't have to use my brain too much - It's a good day to get the lit cited done, cook for the rest of the week, clean, and do the shopping.
Actually, doing the lit cited list is a brilliant idea. Thank you, I'm going to go do that now. I wonder why I hand't thought of this before.
I think it helps to have at least one day between your really busy days. When I taught two days a week last year, I had the same problem, and it has not got easier being a graduate student either.
Sadly, I don't know what helps. Maybe the hope that the semester would soon be over?
I'm not surprised you get especially tired after a busy day --- many autistic people do.
When I was in college, every day I'd be absolutely dead by afternoon. (I front-loaded my classes, with the whole day usually ending by noon or 1:30, to make sure I could be back in my room by the time I needed to veg out.)
We just experience things at so much higher intensity than NTs, because we cannot filter anything out.
As far as advice goes, I never really solved this problem to my satisfaction. I did find that regular exercise gave me much higher baseline energy levels, so that for the most part I *did* have sufficient reserves to cope with the exhaustion. Not sure if exercising between classes is the answer, though ... sometimes you need downtime, too, between things in order to recharge. I typically exercised after my school day was done, in late afternoon or evening.
Thank you, Lindsay. I think autism is definitely part of why I feel so exhausted. There is way too much sociability for me on Mondays. I'm hoping I'll start getting used to this schedule eventually.
I would not presume to give you advice on an area (college level teaching) that I know nothing about. I would say that the feelings you describe are not dissimilar to the kind of feelings that I have experienced after a day of doing presentations to different clients. A presentation is essentially a show cum teaching exercise in which is presented with a proposal for a new product (information system) and then informed on the how that product will help a given enterprise accomplish a goal or goals. If the product actually exists then the client presentation includes a demonstration complete with bells and whistles. My point is that there are a whole set of activities that while not nearly as important as teaching yet produce the same kind of exhilaration and exhaustion.
Yes, exhilaration and exhaustion describe it perfectly. The feeling I get after a full day of teaching is the same as the state of slight alcoholic inebriation. It's like being drunk without actually drinking. And the next day you logically have a hangover. :-)
The exhausting part was always interacting with students and other administrators. If I knew there was a day where my schedule would be very hectic, I would schedule as little as possible for the next day.
On Monday I might have meetings from 8-10 and then general open-door office hours, followed by meetings with individual students, staff, and student group representatives until 10PM.
Tuesday consisted of trying to interact as little as possible with people. If I was the primary staff member on call for my residential area it could get even worse... emergency calls several times during the night followed by the normal schedule the next day were very painful days.
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