Writing and a job

I always dread the start of a new semester.

Part of it is I know I’m on the cusp of having the same disappointing experience I’ve had every new semester now for 20+ years of teaching: anticipating students who are as ferociously interested in thinking about stuff as I was as a student, finding many fewer of them in my classes than I’d hoped.

Another part of it is the terror that I’ll get overwhelmed by the mundanities of the teaching work—mostly futilely trying to learn peoples’ names, preparing for lectures and class discussions, reading student writing—and won’t find any time to write.

How many teachers in the world are people who are trying to find time to write but who also want to be able to eat and have a roof over their heads? Most of them? I suspect it has to be a significant percentage.

We’re two days into the semester, and I’m already stressed about this. And it’s 10 degrees outside. And I think one of the skylights in the house is leaking.

Shit.