Embarassing

It's so embarrassing to reveal my weaknesses. I went to the doctor today and felt very ashamed to circle "yes" on questions about feeling anxiety and depression. The doctor was great though. I'm glad I looked for a different doctor. The doctor I saw last semester didn't even question me about my symptoms. He just wanted to prescribe a sleep drug with anti-depressant effects and move on to the next patient. I told this doctor that I was willing and eager to try anti-anxiety/anti-depressant drugs. I just want to be able sleep at night. I only had three hours of sleep last night and I feel horrible today. The doctor thought we should treat the anxiety/depression first and the sleep should follow. She prescribed the same medication that my husband is taking to control his acid reflux, and he doesn't experience any side effects of the drug. She said it would take about a month to build up in my system, so I'll take a fast acting drug for a month and then stop taking it once the first drug is working.

She also drew blood to test my thyroid. Apparently, changes in thyroid functioning can lead to increases in weight, irregular periods, and changes in mood. Even if the thyroid is not the problem, she thought the serotonin should stabilize at higher levels in 6 months to a year and I might not need the drugs after making it through these significant life changes.

I'm really hoping that this drug will help me get back to the person I am when I'm not anxious about teaching. Now that I'm definitely in this job for another year, I want to be able to function during the day and not live under a cloud of constant anxiety.

Insomnia....again

This is the first time I've had trouble sleeping in weeks. After meeting with a friend of mine from grad school a few weeks ago, my depression finally lifted. I started working on research and threw together new analyses of old data and two new research IRB proposals. However, I learned a few weeks ago that I did not get the First Year Experience Course Director position. At first, I felt fine about losing the position because I wasn't sure the position was right for me after learning more about it during the interviewing.

But now I'm changing my tune. Classes start this week, and I'm up in the middle of the night typing this because I can't sleep. I had trouble falling asleep and once I did fall asleep, I woke up a couple hours later with night sweats. I've been awake for the past two hours, and I'm dreading the idea that this semester might be a re-play of last semester, where I began experiencing sleep disturbances every night and was so fatigued during the day that I could barely managed to keep up with teaching and couldn't make any progress on research.

Then I started thinking horrible thoughts that I would rather die than experience that again. I had to get up because the thoughts made me cry, and I didn't want to disturb my husband. I'm beginning to think that maybe I should take those antianxiety or antidepressant pills that my doctor prescribed for my insomnia last semester. But, I wanted to try natural sleep remedies first. And maybe I should start seeing a therapist, too. My husband contacted our pastor a few weeks ago because I just randomly stayed home from work, and he got a recommendation for a counselor. But I didn't want to make an appointment because I thought I was doing better.

Clearly I'm not.

Nice Quote

I was reading an article about experiencing a life-changing rejection yet still succeeding in life and I just had to share this segment from the article:

To "allow other people's assessment of you to determine your own self-assessment is a very big mistake," says Bollinger, a First Amendment author and scholar. "The question really is, who at the end of the day is going to make the determination about what your talents are and what your interests are? That has to be you."

It really speaks to me. I'm sure I could stand to hear it multiple times. Here's a link to the full article.

So here's the skinny...

I had the interview last week and it was disappointing. The morning was fine. I was introduced to the people in the program and other student affairs programs. Then I had a short break before the program head gave a brief presentation about the vision of the program. Then I had lunch with a couple other members of the search committee and had another break before my presentation. The presentation went okay. I had to present on difficulties first-year students face and strategies for success. I was a lot more fluid during the presentation than my practice runs, and a couple people gave me positive feedback. However, I didn't engage the group very well. Then I met with the former course director and it was nice because I already knew him. But, he really grilled me. By the time we were done, I was pretty much fried. And that was a shame because I still had the most important meeting of the day with the program head. I was so brain fried that I couldn't muster any enthusiasm, and I felt like it took all the effort in the world just to understand what he was saying and produce a coherent response. I then barely made it through the dinner with the program head and one other, including our spouses. It was nice to have my husband there, but neither of us could really carry on much of a conversation by that point.

It wasn't just my lackluster performance that was disappointing, I learned more about the job that made me wonder if it would still be a good fit for me. Apparently, much time is spent networking and getting buy-in from department heads, and dealing with needy instructors who don't attend lesson seminars and then expect individualized lesson prep from me right before they teach the lesson. The person leading me around seemed bent on making sure I understood how difficult it would be to spend long hours working and having little time for research and how there is no down time during the year like there is for faculty. It just left me wondering if this job was right for me after all. So today I applied for an adjunct position teaching at an online institution. Apparently, the courses are all pre-planned, and I would just have to facilitate. That sounds rather nice to me. The students would be graduate students in a doctoral program in education. I think it would be a nice change of pace to teach online classes to adult-learners who are grad students in education compared to teaching psychology in person to traditional undergrads.

All I know is that my current job is ABSOLUTELY NOT what I want to do with my life. And I don't have to feel bad about not liking the position either. Just because I'm working at a fairly prestigious institution, teaching small classes of highly intelligent students, does not mean I have to feel bad about wanting to leave this position. There was a time when I thought this job would be amazing but it's just my first job, and I'm still trying to find out what would best fit me. I should think of it as gaining valuable experience although I cringe at the idea of teaching one more year until my contract runs out. There was also a time when I felt the world was my oyster, when I dreamed big of a wonderful career ahead of me. Now I realize graduate school was an artificial life, one that does not mirror faculty careers. It's time to re-evaluate. Would this job in academic support and advising actually fit me after all? Would online teaching be the best gig? There doesn't seem to be too many options, and right now the road ahead seems very unclear.

Update: Job Application and Teaching

Well, I made it thought the first cut. After my phone interview, the committee has selected me and one other person to come in for a campus interview lasting the whole day. I'm excited and nervous. And after the teaching evaluations I got for last semester, I'm really hoping I get the job. I need something that would be a better fit for me than teaching. Teaching is such a tremendously difficult, draining activity that I am simply not skilled at and the student critiques are quite clear about that fact. Ugh, I shouldn't have read my teaching evaluations if I wanted to have any semblance of self-confidence for the in-person interview next week. Readers: please be thinking of me on my campus interview this June 8th.

Preparing for the Interview

I have a phone interview with people from the registrar's office for the position as First-Year Experience Course Director tomorrow. I'm excited, but it's been a year and a half since I wrote my dissertation on FYE, and I need to refresh my memory! Here's hoping for a good interview!

Teaching Gender and Sexuality

Two class periods have been devoted to gender and sexuality this semester. For the lesson on gender issues, we had a guest speaker present, and she really pushed people's buttons. It was amazing to see how each of my four sections responded differently to her presentation. I taught the following lesson on human sexuality and spent time discussing students' responses to her presentation. I spent only five minutes clarifying one idea for one class. For the other three classes, I spent nearly the whole hour working through student opposition to many of her points. But, it was a great opportunity to get them thinking critically, and it was the most fun I've had since I started teaching. In one class, students wanted to understand the causes of homosexuality and we discussed the biases present in the textbook and elaborated on research findings and theories not found in the book. In another class, students wanted to explore Obama's position about repealing the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy as it relates to homosexuality. I think what was fun about it was that students felt free to express their opinions, that students were interested, and that students began respectfully addressing each other's points in a whole class discussion. I wish more lessons could be like this one was, but I don't think the rest of the material will really hit home with people's strongly held beliefs like this one did.