Classes have started.
I always like this time of year--there's a kind of upbeat energy to campus, a sense of getting this moving, as the first classes start and academics begin again.
The new yearlings are settling in, feeling like part of the community now--both to themselves and to the rest of us. It's funny, I see the same thing every year and I've started to notice the pattern, how each yearling class, regardless of who is in the class or what they think, want, or are capable of as individuals, collectively acts exactly the same until around mid-May. They go through the same stages.
There are the first few weeks when they all wander around looking confused and acting like rather shocked outsiders, and then they get really excited about the school and it's possibilities and they think they understand what's going on around here but they don't. Then classes start, and the new students get a bit overwhelmed and somewhat surprised that this strange and magical place has rather prosaic requirements such as homework--not that they'd admit to such a silly reaction, they knew this is an accredited liberal arts college, but there's a fantasy that happens, and fantasies seldom include real work. Mid-May is when they start to differentiate, to pursue their own paths through the school, and from there on in they are less predictable. To me, anyway. I imagine the masters are aware of deeper patterns and that we all appear quite predictable to them. It's embarrassing.
Anyway.
I'm not taking any classes except for the two required for candidates, and they don't meet every week. Instead I'm teaching. Charlie asked me, last year (or was it the year before?) to teach everything I learned at grad school to the students here, which didn't work well--I don't mean I did a bad job, I mean that most people here really aren't interested in a lot of the material, and since workshops and talks by candidates tend not to be that well attended anyway, attracting students was difficult. And it was expected to be difficult. I wasn't expected to win any popularity contests, and the few people who did show up gave me good reviews, and the long and the short of it is I'm done, now. Done and able to move on to putting together workshops that better fit the needs of my audience.
I've been thinking more about my role in the school, what I might be able to bring to the community once I earn my ring. The problem is that most of the things I could teach that the school does need are already being taught by Charlie--except for statistical literacy, and Allen does that. I make a fine substitute teacher, but fortunately Charlie doesn't get sick that often.
What I can do, though, is write--Charlie can too, obviously, but he doesn't do much about teaching it. No one does. Writing is part of most classes, but no class focuses on it.
So, I've put together a series of workshops and talks on different aspects of writing and editing and I'm also making myself available twice a week as a tutor and coach for people who need help with their homework. It's a need the school has that I can fill.
I'm still teaching tracking, and I'm also doing seminars on different aspects of plant and insect identification--Charlie covers that to some extent, but not in as focused and detailed a way. Again, a need I can fill.
That works out to a very full schedule, since I'm working off-campus at the landscaping company three days a week--ten hours a day makes 30 hours a week, and since I've gotten some promotions over the years, my hourly rate is pretty good, now. I'm not entirely destitute.
I feel...a bit like a grown-up. Which sounds funny, as I'm getting close to 30, but I've never had a full-time job, I've never lived on my own without housemates, I've never made a major purchase if you don't count paying for grad school, there's a lot of adult things I've never done. But I'm a married man, I'm an adjunct college professor, I'm paying down my student loans, and I have a slowly-growing savings account. All of which sounds not too shabby.
Remember John Crain? I mentioned him the other day. He's the treasurer, just started a few years ago. I had lunch with him today, more or less interviewed him as part of my efforts to learn more about this place. It's funny--I think of him as new, because he's been hired since I've been here, but he was one of the first students to come through after the school got accredited. Not that he needed the degree, he already had several. He's had a long, fairly successful career as an accountant, and this is more or less a retirement job for him. The point is he's been part of the community for decades. He's a recent hire, but he's not new.
But as a recent hire--what's that like? What's it like to move...from the outside to the inside, as it were? Is it weird? Do you spend half your time pinching yourself, trying to convince yourself it's real? What's it like?
And I forgot to ask him.
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