School is starting: Whimper!

Well, I just got back from my conference in which I presented two posters. It was a small conference and people weren't that interested in chatting with poster presenters. They preferred to read a few lines on the poster and move on. Oh, well. I preferred it that way because I didn't really have good explanations for my research anyways. It's still too preliminary. But, now I'm back and facing the fact that school is starting next week. I'm still not happy about that fact and I think the sole reason is that I know I'll have to teach.

I could be getting excited about the two classes I'm taking and the research into my dissertation topic, but instead I'm focusing on the fact that I'm teaching again. Such dread...it's inexplicable. I wish I didn't view teaching with such dread; maybe I'll be lucky and the dread will dissipate once I'm into the semester. Sigh....I looked at my class roster today and found a few familiar names. Some of the students I had while teaching social psych two years ago are now in my class for child & adolescent psych. Yelp! I was so hoping I could start fresh and wouldn't have any students who witnessed my total flop at teaching social psych! Sigh...

Dissertatin'

I now understand why people dole out the advice of writing something for your dissertation every day. It is absolute agony to be confined to writing all day long when you could be writing in short bursts and then setting it aside for a fresh look another day. Plus, you'll never write a dissertation the weekend before it is due. ;)

Summer is Definitely Over

Well, I'm a little late to jump on this end-of-summer bandwagon thing. I've been noticing Karen and Jael write about how the end of summer has affected them by shocking them out of blissful summer complacency and into fall preparedness. I, on the other hand, am exceptionally good at denial. I have denied the fact that summer is almost over until very recently. So recently that I left myself one week to write a 25-page paper for my dissertation proposal independent study. I was supposedly "researching" all summer long. But, no...I wasn't. So now I have managed to resurrect a paper that I wrote during my short-lived stint as a project coordinator. As I looked back through my documents, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of work done by one who did not know what she was doing. It made me feel better about my current predicament for about 2 seconds. Then I realized that the resurrected paper covered only one topic in my "survey" of "issues" about my "dissertation topic." Back to the drawing board.

Alas, while the proposal research is one thing weighing heavily on my mind (as looming deadlines will do) there are plenty of other things that I could have been spending my time on over the course of the summer that would have made things much easier right about now. One major thing I can think of is teaching. I don't know about you, but I didn't go into this field because I wanted to teach. But, teaching is one of those things you can't just place on a lower rung of importance. And for some people, including myself, it is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Therefore, I think the one thing that is contributing most to my end-of-summer angst is the concept that I'm going to have to fly by the seat of my pants in teaching this fall instead of having a nicely planned course built from the ground up prior to the start of the semester. Wouldn't that have been nice. Oh, well.

I suppose I should get back to that "paper" I'm supposedly "writing."

Teaching Update

I met with the graduate student mentioned in the previous post. She was very nice and we had a good old time chatting about teaching. Therefore, I've decided that there's nothing wrong with me. The problem lies in the other person. And I think the problem is that the first unpleasant grad student was in the school psych program. I've concluded that I should avoid school psych people like the plague. This is not the first school psych grad student that I've butted heads with. That program just breeds uppity, competitive, and snippy females. Those are characteristics that I despise, and I simply do not get along well with people who embody those characteristics.