If I’m honest with myself I want to get this done now because I don’t want to deal with it later. My longest teaching day is also my worst. It begins with a deeply disinterested 7AM class that would rather stare at me and react with disgust when asked to respond than actually take the mental energy to learn something. Then I get a break to have office hours. By 10 AM I am back in the saddle with a late start class. Late start is a situation generally reserved for students who enrolled at the last minute or had other issues. The population can be riddled with problems. This is a class that started two weeks after the semester began. Problems galore.
I need the second office hour after this one to get right and ready for the 3rd class, which is also a late start but not as late or problematic. The day generally ends well with this bunch. Better engagement and I’ve already had a week to prepare and prototype the lesson. It feels more and more like I am getting near to the end of it as I get to the end of that class. I’ll have a pair more the next day and a ton of online work, but the 10 AM is the hump.
All in all, I’m quite burned out. I came into the semester out of breath and haven’t caught my breath yet. It doesn’t help that I am fed up with things outside of the work life. Grown kid stuff, health issues, writing issues… the list goes on.