new quarter

after a very restful and rejuvenating christmas break in bakersfield, today i found myself scrambling to prepare for the new quarter.

i suppose it's a good thing i didn't resolve not to procrastinate this year!

i'm nervous because i'll be teaching a new course this quarter. when i was at texas, i taught the same two courses over and over again. they were lower division courses that weren't necessarily the first choices for faculty members to teach. as a grad student and then as a lecturer, i was happy to teach them, and, after some time, i think that i got pretty good at teaching them. i had all my materials assembled, my lectures ready, all of which i updated as needed.

last quarter, my chair allowed me to teach one of the courses that i had taught so many times at texas. it was his way of helping me transition to my new university.

but now i find myself in the middle of something new. i'm excited to teach a different course, but i find that i'm not nearly as confident as i had been over the past few years. surely part of this nervousness stems from the fact that i'll have to write completely new lectures this quarter even as i gather new materials for instruction.

another, more familiar, part of my anxiety is becoming accustomed to a new group of students. i always worry that they'll be unfriendly, which seems like a silly worry, especially since i am, after all, their teacher. they should be worried that i'll be unfriendly, right?

in any event, tomorrow is the first day of school. wish me luck.

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