Well, I've been having a few days here when I really have been questioning my sanity with this whole job switch thing . . .

I'm finding it hard not to measure my success by the atmosphere in the classroom. (Actually, I don't know how else you'd measure it, when you come right down to it.) I had a pretty rough day Monday; I was tired and not on my game completely. I found myself getting more impatient than I might otherwise have; when a student, who obviously hadn't been paying attention, asked me a question about something I had literally just talked about, I said, "I'm sorry. I just went over that. Read the handout."

Dunno. Maybe I should say things like that more often. Maybe I have a very constricted notion of what I can say. At the moment, I feel the need to observe an almost exaggerated politeness when dealing with these people, even when they frustrate me. And I do get frustrated when they haven't completed the assignment, or aren't prepared for class . . . and I'm frustrated with myself, too, at my inability to keep track of small stuff; and with Blackboard, our course management system, which has some of the stupidest default settings I've ever seen. (Like, when you create a quiz, the default is set to NOT show a link to it. I can't count the number of times I've forgotten that toggle, announced the quiz, and gotten confused emails.)

Today I finally got so desperate that I made a workflow grid to track whether I'd photocopied assignment handouts, and whether I'd actually handed them out in class, and whether I'd placed them on each course space (because of course you have to upload the damned things twice if you have two separate classes), and whether I'd graded them (if they are things that need to be turned in). I expect a certain amount of slippage around the edges (I'm not by nature methodical), but I keep getting broadsided by things I forgot to do, or thought I did, or what have you.

And part of it, too, is that I'm overwhelmed by the big picture as well as the minutiae. I have no chance to take a long view of anything going on in any of my classes - I'm rushing from one activity to the next, grading papers or preparing for class (at the last minute, by the seat of my pants). I've hit the point in the semester when weekends are not long enough, and I long for escape. I've started having my own particular brand of stress/escape dreams.

Today I found myself thinking, "Gosh, maybe I'm not cut out for this." I've worried that I don't have the ego strength to deal with indifferent late adolescents, and maybe I really don't.

Too soon to tell, I know; I have to give it a year, at least, but today for the first time I started to think that yes, I might be looking for a different job before long . . .

We'll see, I guess.