Learn vs.Teach

(as ever, skip the school musings unless you're really interested!)

Wow--the quarter turn-around can be a little dizzying sometimes!  A quarter is over in a blink, the one week break can be just a big sigh, & then we're off again!  Spring quarter, by the looks of it, will be the busiest of the year; summer quarter will be calmer--and I still feel as though my juggling act is barely holding together! All eighteen of my winter quarter advisees made it through last quarter--although a couple had me holding my breath briefly. (Sometimes I wonder how I would fair if I had only two exams & a paper balancing my future on the outcome!)

Although we knew that the school budget was going to pass through a knothole soon with the new state budget in progress, I think many/most of us were still somewhat unprepared for how it would all play out. A nearly five million dollar deficit for the budget year beginning July 1 is a grim obstacle. (At this moment, I'll refrain from my rant on the state of important issues like education & health care in the current national tempest--in a teapot! Not my country's finest hour...) During these many months, as I've pinched myself regularly to be sure I'm not just dreaming up this great job, I've had a feeling of waiting for 'the other shoe to drop'--and it did, finally, during finals week, as administrators went through gauntlet days meeting with staff--including me.
Good news is: I will still have a job in the fall (many will not).  Bad news is: all tenure track processes will be shelved as of June, with no future expectation of being dusted off & brought back to life. That translates to year-to-year contracts with no guarantees. Although I'm still among the standing, the other bad news is I will be considered a 75% faculty as of September (both in hours & pay)--which means auxiliary job hunting is likely.  There is a possibility that I can 'moonlight' some additional hours during the next academic year, but doubtful it will be enough.  Dang!   Turns out it did feel too good to be true! It's pretty hard to get much of a pity-party going, though, when many folks I know are out altogether, and most of them have been there much longer than my neophyte-self. (Schools don't really need art teachers & librarians, right?!)

So, for now, I'm pulling my Scarlett O'Hara & deciding to think about it tomorrow, as life is fairly busy today! I'll be alternating weeks of two 8-hour shifts & four 8-hour shifts at two different hospitals with two different groups.
Throw in a few classes, stir with weekly clinical packets to be reviewed, & sprinkle with some papers & presentations, and you've got a tossed salad of 'never a dull moment'! I am not complaining though; far from it! I love the clinical hours, even though there are moments of sweating bullets, biting your tongue, sitting on your hands, etc.--and, as ever, questioning who really is teaching whom! Every day...