2015011.0703

As I continue to struggle back to some degree of normalcy, I look forward today to bringing my wife and daughter back home from their visit to family in the Texas Hill Country. I got a fair bit done in the day without them yesterday, although not so much as I would have wanted--as ever seems to be the case--but I miss them terribly and I am ready to have them with me again. (Why I keep going away from them, I am not certain. Perhaps because I *do* need to get work done so that I can continue to support them...I suppose I ought to get past my selfishness and think about what is best for them. And I have to get through the short term to have any access to the long...)

I am ready also for the work of teaching today, as among those things I did get done was lesson preparation for the day. There are two things I mean to do: discuss audience and distribute the first major assignment sheet. Both ought to go well enough; I have done this a few times before, as I recall, and not seldom at the place where I find myself now. This does not mean I will be operating on autopilot, certainly. Every class is different, and those differences demand attention. Too, I will need to see about incorporating some aspects of diversity (considered in terms of socially constructed and determined groups) into the course sequence--largely so that I can meet the demands of a workshop in which I am participating (and thus earn more money for my family). The way audience is discussed would seem to be an easy entrance into the idea.

Freelance work continues, as well. I have an order from one client waiting for me to do an easy bit of reading, and I pushed through another short piece because I had some thirty minutes to do a bit of work and the job was available. I do not know that I can do enough freelance work through the channels currently available that I could afford to leave off the day job I have at present, but freelancing continues to offer a useful auxiliary source of income. It also offers some "applied" experience for deployment in job applications for non-teaching jobs (and even for some teaching jobs); I remain in search of continuing employment, whether in or out of academia, and the latter too often refuses to view teaching a thing as experience with that thing. Freelancing helps address that, and I've been at it steadily for more than a year, now.

I have a busy day ahead of me, it seems. It is hardly unusual that I would, though, and I am not complaining of it. The simple notation is not a complaint. It is instead an acknowledgement of living in a flawed and fallen world and an exhortation to do better than I have been doing--something I think many could use.