Dear 2012, I'm seriously going to kick your ass. My time has come and I'm going to take it people! I am about to start teaching again. It is a hopeful, joyful, happy feeling I can't begin to describe. I took this first week of the year off just to prep for my classes. I am also doing some professional writing. I don't think I have truly acknowledged to myself that I am indeed going to be a professor again. But I know things are looking up because I'm doing a ton of novel reading (even ones with downbeat themes), I'm writing lots (in a journal), and I'm all "thinky" all the time. I guess I could say I'm ponderous, or intellectually stimulated, or philosophical, but the real me calls it "thinky" so there.
My foray back into academia is going to require a few things:
1) Learning how to speak for hours at a time again. This involves having water and tea handy at all times.
2) Remembering how to dress like a professional after months of working at home. I may have to wear something other than my one pair of favorite jeans.
3) Using words like "thinky" inside my head only. There's going to have to be a lot of "inside" words, actually.
4) Writing and publishing as much as possible.
5) Remembering I'm Dr. Sweet Lady now. Dr. Sweet Lady brooks no foolishness! She has student loans to pay and does not need to hear excuses and requests for extended deadlines. Dr. Sweet Lady also stays around and does more student support stuff.
Some of these things I'm working on, others I'll have to deal with on the fly.
Here's to a great 2012 for all of you. If it's the apocalypse year, I hope you, like me, die in the first wave. It's really the only way to do the apocalypse right.
woohoo! i look forward to seeing ya, Dr. Sweet Lady!