20160120.0625

Work continues today. I will be back in the classroom again, although this will be the only day this week I have all four of my classes. (Friday, I will only have the three plus an extended office hour; I will also have some side-work to attend to in the late afternoon and early evening.) One set of classes has homework coming in--nothing complicated, simply a means for me to check on whether or not the students are lining up as they ought to for the major assignment on which they are working. The other will have an assignment introduced to them. Both have examples of how the assignment should work online; I work hard to ensure that there are resources available, and students do, in time, notice that the materials are there for them. I could stand to see them realize it more quickly, though...

I do not currently have a freelance piece lined up, although I completed one yesterday and have received word that it was accepted. I find that I look forward to the next one, not only because it means I will be bringing more money into the household, but also because I will get to read something that breaks me out of the isolation typically ascribed to academics and which they recognize in themselves, as this piece and others acknowledge. (I am not on the dating market for anyone but my most excellent Mrs. Much of the advice applies to simple friendships, though. Be advised.) I have referenced the work I do as a freelancer in my classrooms, I have referenced it in other writing that I do (for example, here), and I have used it in conversations with people outside academia entirely. Being able to discuss bestsellers helps.

The search for more stable employment continues. I am wading through a stack of academic job applications, trying to knock out one or more each day. (I am usually successful.) Given contractual obligations, I cannot in good faith seek work outside academia at this point; I would need to start sooner than my present circumstances would allow, and I do not want to screw around with those students who actually care about what they are doing by walking away from the current work. Come the end of the term, however, if nothing else has come up, I will see about shifting my attention elsewhere. At that point, I will be able to walk into another job, and I am willing to move to take one (although I recall how the last move affected the Mrs....I would not care to repeat the experience). I try to be flexible, as much as my circumstances allow me to be.

In the meantime, though, I can but press on as work continues. To borrow an old adage, the hay stands tall in the fields, and the sun is beginning to come over the horizon in the east...