Starting the spring

Spring term is starting soon, so I'm already prepping syllabi and starting to think about courses. The thing I love about spring: it's my "light" semester (when I only teach two courses). And before anyone starts complaining about a teacher not wanting to teach, believe me -- that's not me. I quite enjoy teaching. But when I teach only two classes, not only do I also get to do my creative work (which is something that I believe makes me a better teacher), but I also get to spend more quality time with my classes.

I get to spend more time grading (i.e., better critiques of creative work), and I get to spend mroe time prepping (i.e., better prepared and more able to facilitate useful discussions).

So I like the spring. The fall, when I teach three courses, is considerably more hectic (and I cannot for the life of me imagine juggling four or five courses, unless I was teaching multiple sections of the same course).

The other reason I don't like fall as much is that my chair has asked me to teach the intro course for our major. He teaches one section, and up until now, one of our lecturers was teaching the other. The thing is, I'm not opposed to teaching it -- I actually think it would a fun course. And his reasoning makes sense to me (people joining our major, or considering joining it, should be introduced to it by someone who is going to be here long term).

But the fall is already a busy time, and he's also asked me to teach the "capstone" course in the major in the spring. Two new courses in a semester of three. And there's some other personal issue coming this summer that makes the fall a bit more hectic, so between the intro course, the capstone course, and my personal stuff, I'm dreading the fall.

However, the nice thing is that these are good problems to have, it's nice to be trusted with courses that are considered important, and I still enjoy my job.

In creative news, I'm starting work on a short film in the next few weeks, to be shot here and there (not in one concentrated shoot). And I'm beginning the long process of raising money to shoot my next feature. Life continues.