In which Katie teaches outside, goes to IKEA, and embraces hermithood.
Now that the weather has gotten tolerable, I have been seduced by the siren song of class outside, much to the general amusement of my students.
I always assumed that it was merely the hard-hearted cruelness of professors that kept me inside a stuffy seminar room on days when the sunshine was warming the backs of my less attendance-scrupulous classmates. Turns out there are some actual problems with teaching disinterested students outside.
1. dirt - they just aerated the quads which makes for a rather bumpy and er... dirty space for sitting. This drove my class off of the grass onto the benches where we encountered...
2. bugs - little tiny waspy-like biting things that were freakishly albino white. I actually had a student ask me after class - "Is that was flying termites look like?" . Yipes.
3. sooo many things to fidget with - I knew that something was wrong when I was gesturing towards students and their comments with a clod of dirt.
4. Wind - speaking as someone with long hair.
5. Noise - because I'm deaf
6. general distractibility - because I'm so easily amused.
Needless to say, a timid professor would collapse in the face of such opposition. So I have revised my previous view of my professors - they're not hard-hearted, they're just sissies. As I reviewed introductions and conclusions for the 50th time with the sun beating down on my back and the happy smiles of contented students, I realized that despite the flaws, teaching outside is really much better.
From my title it is clear that I have been to IKEA. What is not clear is that I got an awesome desk that is now living in my sunroom and taking up entirely too much space. This is part of an overall plan that involves my actually getting some kind of work done on my dissertation.
I also, in a fit of desperation, emailed my professors and set up a meeting to discuss the draft of my proposal that I have not as of yet written in hopes that this will kick my ass.
Consider it kicked.
So I will try to spend a bit more time in the sunroom with my fancy new desk getting things done instead of spending a lot of time in front of the TV playing Oblivion on my new Xbox 360. Also I hope to spend a little less time and $ in my car driving to places where I procrastinate by shopping.
And I think that it's working. Yesterday (my first solid day of working in a looong time) I felt damn terrific.
Today, today is good.
I always assumed that it was merely the hard-hearted cruelness of professors that kept me inside a stuffy seminar room on days when the sunshine was warming the backs of my less attendance-scrupulous classmates. Turns out there are some actual problems with teaching disinterested students outside.
1. dirt - they just aerated the quads which makes for a rather bumpy and er... dirty space for sitting. This drove my class off of the grass onto the benches where we encountered...
2. bugs - little tiny waspy-like biting things that were freakishly albino white. I actually had a student ask me after class - "Is that was flying termites look like?" . Yipes.
3. sooo many things to fidget with - I knew that something was wrong when I was gesturing towards students and their comments with a clod of dirt.
4. Wind - speaking as someone with long hair.
5. Noise - because I'm deaf
6. general distractibility - because I'm so easily amused.
Needless to say, a timid professor would collapse in the face of such opposition. So I have revised my previous view of my professors - they're not hard-hearted, they're just sissies. As I reviewed introductions and conclusions for the 50th time with the sun beating down on my back and the happy smiles of contented students, I realized that despite the flaws, teaching outside is really much better.
From my title it is clear that I have been to IKEA. What is not clear is that I got an awesome desk that is now living in my sunroom and taking up entirely too much space. This is part of an overall plan that involves my actually getting some kind of work done on my dissertation.
I also, in a fit of desperation, emailed my professors and set up a meeting to discuss the draft of my proposal that I have not as of yet written in hopes that this will kick my ass.
Consider it kicked.
So I will try to spend a bit more time in the sunroom with my fancy new desk getting things done instead of spending a lot of time in front of the TV playing Oblivion on my new Xbox 360. Also I hope to spend a little less time and $ in my car driving to places where I procrastinate by shopping.
And I think that it's working. Yesterday (my first solid day of working in a looong time) I felt damn terrific.
Today, today is good.
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