Wednesday 9 December 2009

Next Semester's Roster

I received the roster for my teaching schedule for next semester. To my chagrin I start every morning at either 8:30 or 9:00; which I, of course and from thorough experience, think it is a terrible idea.

On Mondays the first class I teach only starts at 10:00; however, I have a faculty meeting at 8:30 every Monday.

Another unfortunate part of the roster is that I will be teaching an afternoon class on Fridays. Since I keep the Sabbath, I prefer to have my Friday afternoons free to unwind and get into a more relaxed (Sabbath) spirit. This will be less simple next semester. Another sad thing about the Friday classes is Research Methodology at 9:00. The poor students! Who wants to do Research Methodology first thing on a Friday morning?

Most of the week I will be teaching four hours per day and as any university lecturer can tell you, four hours can be quite exhausting if you keep the preparation time for each hour in mind. My best days will be Mondays since I will only teach one class from ten to eleven, leaving most of the day free if I need to run errands. Our department chairperson started a project to convert one of the classrooms into a “study room.” Carpenters, outfitters, and other maintenance workers have been busy for weeks now to convert the room into said study room. He requested that some of us teachers volunteer some hours per week at the study room to assist students with problems. At first I thought that I will not volunteer any hours because of all the faculty members in our department I am going to teach the most credits next semester, but seeing as I have such a friendly Monday, I may just contribute one hour every Monday to the cause.

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