November 16, 2023

Early Day

By Joe

Whether Isabella wakes me up at 4:00 am or 4:30 am doesn’t really matter that much. I can rarely sleep past 5:00 am anyway. It seems to be only the days when I want to wake up early and get moving that I seem to always sleep a little later and am moving very slowly when I do get out of bed. Of course, Isabella doesn’t allow me to move too slowly because as soon as she sees me sit on the side of the bed, she’s ready to have her wet food in her bowl. She can be very impatient.

Today (I’m actually writing this before I went to sleep last night), I’m hoping is a day that I will wake up early and get moving. I teach on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and I like to get up and go over my lecture before class. I usually go over the first part while I’m eating breakfast, and then, I do my best to get to work early so I have some quiet time at work before anyone arrives to finish going over my notes and get ready for class. 

Teaching this class has been a lot of work this semester because I’m teaching something I’ve never taught before, so there are no previous lecture notes or anything else to make things easier. I only have a few more weeks of class, and I know I’ll miss teaching when this semester is over. I realized years ago that I did not want to teach full time, and usually the classes I teach for other professors let me still be in the classroom some. 

I really do love teaching and getting to know my students. When I teach for other professors, I get to see the students for one or two classes, and that’s it. Having a full semester with the same group of students has been nice. I hope that I will be teaching at least one class every academic year, but we’ll see if that happens. The extra money is nice too. It’s been a lot work, long days and early mornings preparing for this class, but it really has been a joy teaching this semester. I’ve had a great group of students, and that always makes a huge difference.

About Joe

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I began my life in the South and for five years lived as a closeted teacher, but am now making a new life for myself as an oral historian in New England. I think my life will work out the way it was always meant to be. That doesn't mean there won't be ups and downs; that's all part of life. It means I just have to be patient. I feel like October 7, 2015 is my new birthday. It's a beginning filled with great hope. It's a second chance to live my life…not anyone else's. My profile picture is "David and Me," 2001 painting by artist Steve Walker. It happens to be one of my favorite modern gay art pieces. View all posts by Joe
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 16th, 2023 at 6:00 am and posted in Education, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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