So you wanna teach literature. . .

I've just finished filling out my daybook for next month, and based on only the meetings and classes I'm required to attend as a new faculty member, I might have to quit now.

I'm attending every species of computer training, because our classrooms are all "smart" and we'd like to be "paperless." The irony that I'm an English teacher being asked to go paperless does not escape me. [Er, I like the paper? I need the paper?] I'm waiting for the phone call saying that I need to just show these kids Shakespeare plays in moving picture form so that old Riverside Shakespeares don't clutter up any more landfills. I have to give my first class without a paper syllabus, too--this will not faze many of you, but some of you know what a lovely crutch that paper syllabus and course policies can be. Especially the first day! But no. . .I need to throw it up online and scan it or pdf it or just make it an html document. I know how to do all these things, but I've never done it on the hoof in front of 30 eager undergrads. Hence, classes.

I also have all the "new faculty" type meetings, receptions, and bureaucracy. I feel supported like I'm wearing a Wonder Bra, but I'd like some more time to read and work on my syllabus and consider what I'm supposed to be teaching. A colleague made an offhanded comment that higher education is all about the support and the administration and not about the education these days. We'll see if he's right. I'm secretly hoping my moving truck pulls up one day during "hell week" and I get to skip out. (Actually, I do not wish that! No wishing here, moving gods! I want you pulling in the day I pull in to town! Or perhaps the day after once I've test driven my new air mattress. With an electric pump. Not battery, because I'm not taking a queen size air mattress into the freaking woods or something. Who does that?)

Anywho. I've got two more days of work, too. The worst hours are over, but I've still got to launch a journal and complete my office's new style guide (if I must leave, I simply must leave some style behind! Actually, I'm the office staff writer, so I just need to download the writing quirks of our office out of my brain). To amuse myself I've made all the examples--comma usage, restrictive clauses--feature my name and my experiences throughout the summer. The first few were about how "Meg would like to flee the country; indeed, she is seriously considering dropping everything and taking the next flight to Rome." But now we've moved on to ones like "Meg does not have a Ph.D. Nay, according to the Chicago style guide, she now has a PhD and works near Washington DC and lives in Baltimore MD, not Baltimore, Md."