This was probably the best semester I had as a professor. As I accumulate more experience, I get better at managing my time, choosing teaching strategies that will work for each specific course and avoiding activities that are likely to fail. I now know much better how to fulfill the inevitable service obligations and meet the bureaucratic requirements while preventing them from occupying too much of my time. I have discovered some invaluable resources that are helping to organize my research and turn it into a much more productive direction.
However, I'm really ready to be done with this semester at this point. I have two and a half weeks of teaching left. On May 5, I will be done with the final exams and hope to have all the grades submitted by May 9. On that day, I will celebrate both the victory of the Soviet Union in World War II and my own resounding victory over my second year on the tenure-track. Then, I will have almost 4 months of complete freedom.
Over the summer, I am planning to put in practice all the strategies that I have learned from the Stupid Motivational Tricks blog. The greatest struggle of being a newly minted academic was not knowing what was the next step I needed to take and how all of my huge plans could be put into practice. Now, however, I feel that I have a road-map that will allow me to get exactly where I want. While I faced last summer with an apprehension that told me I might get lost in a multitude of things I wanted to do (which is exactly what happened), this time I'm very confident that I know how to proceed and have the best time ever.
I can't wait for the summer to come.
1 comment:
"This was probably the best semester I had as a professor."
Let us fervently hope that this is not true; it means that you will no longer be a professor and that this one was the best.
"This was probably the best semester I have had as a professor." or even
"This has probably been the best semester I have had so far as a professor."
would be better, I think (hope.)
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