Whew! All I can say is that these last 3-4 weeks have flown by. They’ve been fun while being so busy, and I cannot fully express how *happy* I am in this tenure-track position in comparison to my postdoc. This clearly says something about my postdoctoral environment, as well as my new department!
Teaching. Classes started last Monday, and I’ve now taught two lectures from each of my two classes. I think it’s going as well as can be expected so far. Most of the time my students stare up at me blankly, but occasionally something I say gets a small chuckle. I think I’m coming across as sufficiently approachable, because I’ve had a slew of student emails over the past week, and one of the small groups in one class had a serious discussion about the virtues of “country-grown” marijuana versus “city-bought” pot (I pretended to put my fingers in my ears and said “I’m not hearing this” in a sing-song voice).
There was a glitch in my class preparation process, however, and I’m not as prepared for the second class as I would like. When I was negotiating my contract for this position, the chair of my department promised that I could teach class #2 “out of the box” because the class is well-developed and “most of the preparation will have been done” for me. Alas, this is not the case, and I’m still having to do quite a bit of prep. I think I can handle it, but it’s going to make this semester a bit more stressful than I’d anticipated. One problem I’ve run into is that it takes me too long to prepare my lectures. Ideally I’d get 1 lecture (1 hour & 15 minutes) finished in 3 hours of prep time, but it’s probably taking me 4 hours to get it done. This hour might not seem like a lot, but cumulatively, this means an extra 30 hours per semester for each class. Do any readers who are educators have ideas for how to cut this time without cutting corners? (Admittedly, this is part and parcel of being a new professor, and things will be better next semester when I’m only having to prep 1 class instead of two).
Research. This will cut into my research time this semester, but I think I can ride out my postdoctoral momentum enough to get a good evaluation this year. Last summer’s “forced march” paper has been conditionally accepted for publication pending minor changes; I’ve made all but two of the changes and can probably send it back late next week. I have another “revise and resubmit” that needs to be finished before December, and a couple of other papers in the works with various co-authors.
I really, really wanted to start collecting pilot data for my next research study this autumn, but yesterday I found out that I probably won’t be able to do so until the winter. This is because my application for a grantwriting workshop has been accepted, although I didn’t really want it to be. What this means is that for the next two months (while prepping for two classes, keeping up with the pubs I’d started in Postdoc City, and just generally learning how to be a professor), I’ll write a full grant with the intent of submitting it to NIH in February. I’ll also participate in one-on-one critique sessions with a nationally-known grantwriting guru, and work with other faculty at my university in this workshop. I should be excited about this, because the selection process was competitive, and it’s an honor to be chosen to participate. However, I’m not very keen on it because I’ve already got so much going on. This is just one more thing to do in the next two months, and I’m afraid it’s going to entirely upset the balance of the apple-cart. I’m trying to keep my eye on the prize: This program will force me to get the grant written sooner rather than later, which can only help a procrastinating Adder like me. Plus, I’ll get helpful feedback from a grantwriting pro, which will hopefully lead to a better score and better chances of getting federal funding (translation for non-academics: getting millions of dollars from NIH or NSF is a very, very good thing for doing good research and will go a long way towards my getting tenure). “No pain, no gain” will just have to be my motto for the next two months.
Being an educator with ADD. Managing my medication in order to get through my classes has worked out ok. I teach both of my classes on the same days, and the second class is scheduled for the early evening hours. In order to have coverage for most of the day and both class periods I have to take my first morning dose of ritalin an hour later than normal (i.e., 9:30 instead of 8:30). It’s working out ok, and I don’t have to take any medication in the middle of class, either.
This is the only thing going right with my medication situation at this time, unfortunately. I had my last appointment with Med Shrink in Postdoc City in late June, which ended up being a phone appointment because our moving schedule was so messed up. I’ve been banking ritalin for the past year so I’d have enough to last until I was established in New City, and in June Med Shrink said she’d drop another prescription in the mail so I’d be completely covered. The prescription never arrived, but I didn’t stress about it because of my banked ritalin. Last week I thought I’d try to make an appointment at the psychiatric clinic here, hoping I’d be able to get in within a couple of weeks, because I’m running short on my SSRI for PMDD but am still doing ok with ritalin. Imagine my dismay when I couldn’t get an appointment until the first week of October at either the psych clinic OR my new primary care physician! So, I emailed Med Shrink, told her that the first mailed prescription never arrived, and asked her for a big favor… she came through and offered to drop the prescriptions in the mail to me. But, yet again, it’s a week later, and no prescriptions have arrived. I hope there’s nothing strange going on with the mail… what do you do when you need medication but can’t get in to see any doctors?!?
That’s all on this end for now. I’ll try to be better about posting now that the school year has begun again, but it might be a little dicey with the grantwriting process over the next 2 months.
