It's three-freaking-forty-seven in the morning. I've been trying to sleep for ages, and finally got so frustrated being in bed and having nothing happen, that I've come here at last.
These past few weeks, since school started, since New Orleans, since everything, I've had so many thoughts swirling through my head at one time that it's been nearly impossible to sit down and focus enough to write. I'm constantly writing down reminders on my hands, then promptly forgetting them, switch from thinking about class to other class to other class to other class as if my brain is some kind of tv screen which someone else is controlling by remote.
All this leads me to conclude a few things. 1. I really need to lay off the caffeine again. It doesn't matter how tired I find myself tomorrow, if I want to be able to sleep, it's a terrible, terrible idea. 2. I need to commit to getting some sort of exercise that can let me release some of this stressful build-up. Stop worrying about the possibility of seeing students at the gym. 3. I could try those sleeping pills, maybe?
I can feel the stress-- in my shoulders, in my neck, in my stomach. Soooo frustrating.
My classes are okay-- good, even, but I'm finding myself having so much anxiety about performing for students that I can't relax until class is/classes are over for the day. Or the week. I tried falling asleep tonight scrambling to think about the single 50 minute class I teach tomorrow. So far, I've prepared at least 2 hours for that said class. More than that, if you count the grading. And the ridiculous thing is that I'll probably spend at least 2-3 hours more in the morning preparing for it. Seriously-- who spends 5 hours (or more!) preparing for a 50 minute class? I'm ridiculous.
My freshmen know terribly little about what's going on in the world. Last semester, they didn't know Abu Ghraib. This semester, they're utterly clueless about the hurricane. The sad part of it is, most of them don't seem to mind not knowing. One girl last week said "I don't watch the news," in a tone that made it sound like that's a good thing. What?? I want to do something about this. I'm seriously thinking about devoting at least part of one day a week talking about the news (and requiring them to read about it). I can do this. It's comp. class, after all. I can make them write about it.
I'm so tired.
And so sorry.
I'm not feeling much like myself-- or at least, not like the calm and relaxed and thoughtful self I have been some few times in my life. I miss her.
3 comments:
In some ways it's good they are not watching the "news". Much of it is vacuous nonsense, generated with a corporate world view, with very little in the way of critical analysis or real thought.
If you want your students to study this stuff it may be best to use news sources
from places other than the USA.
I think the news connection is a great idea (especially following the above suggestion about using other news sources - I can suggest some good English editions of Spanish newspapers, if you're interested.) Often students complain about the opposite problem, that their classes don't engage the "real world" enough. I would think that a comp class is a great way to do that.
Aha! Now I see, it just took some serious insomnia to get a post out of you. ;-)
I think it's sometimes a useful thing to use a comp class to get them to think about issues like these. Check out Rana's compare/contrast post on the GOP, Dem, and Green party web pages. I'm going to turn that into an assignment for my students this week.
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