Okay, I admit it: it’s nice to be back. It’s nice to have an actual office to go to. It’s not easy to get stuff I need to get done while at home. I’m not a 9-to-5 employee, but I still have full-time work, with grading papers, preparing notes, research, and of course the additional load of some free-lance writing.
When I’m home, I can easily get sucked into the role of “crisis manager.” Someone hollers, I need to find out what the deal is. The phone rings. I get hungry easily. Nature calls. Bills stare at me, nervously, wondering if I’ll remember. And of course there’s somebody out there in Alberta who’s dying to read my next post and I don’t want to disappoint my fan club. (Okay, that’s just a fantasy – and a weird one at that — but that’s the beauty of the Internet for ya! And who knows, there might be someone who does nothing else with his/her life but wait for my new post to appear! I gotta get a life…)
Well, anyway, the month of May was truly insane, with all these birthdays and parties and Mother’s Day right in the middle. And all of a sudden it’s the end of the first week of June! But I’m being productive, now that I am actually ay my office. What have I done? Well, let’s see…
I made copies of my syllabus for my class. That was nice.
I updated the course content on the electronic “Blackboard” system. This is a new high-tech learning environment that is great for on-line education but can also be used as a supplement for classroom learning. You can provide additional reading assignments, post links to sites, students can post their papers electronically, and we can even have virtual classrooms. It’s amazing. But I digress. Which of course, is what I was doing a lot of that first day of classes…
I had to get a quick refresher on how to use an AV setup in a particular room I was lucky to get. We have a SmartBoard in the room, which is very cool.
I chatted with old colleagues I’ve not seen in ages.
Made some social phone calls.
Stared out the window.
Played internet checkers with my nephew when he got home from school.
Yes, it’s great to be back at work – I’m so productive!