I lost sleep a couple of nights (as in being awake until very late talking to K, I don't really ever have any insomnia, thankfully) while we were in Maceió, daunted by the amount of work and the effort it would take to organize the study abroad.
I was really stressed out that this whole thing would distract me from my new job and be a big nuisance. K talked me into simply thinking of it positively, as a valuable experience and one more line in my CV (oh, BTW, as far as publications go my CV is really bad, but I have a short translation of mine that will be published soon, a little thing, but so exciting!). So I had reconciled myself to doing it in spite of the clear disadvantages of such a serious responsibility.
That's why about 45 minutes after I arrived home after 1.5 month away I left to go to a mandatory meeting for the study abroad organizers. After the meeting, which dealt with complicated budget submission, I was called to talk to the director of the programs and he told me, very apologetically, that my department the the GenEd department had decided that I couldn't do the program because of my new job with another school.
I was taken aback and slightly upset/disappointed, but then I realized that they had actually given me a "gift" with this decision.... I was now released from the responsibility and the work and I can concentrate on teaching and my new job. YAY!! Talk about good timing in the end. It was definitely one of those cases of "lemons becoming lemonade).
So... yeah, one less thing in my plate which now feels so much lighter!
Wonderful, what a great moment!
ReplyDeleteTrust me, unless you were really invested in it, you were lucky! Organizing study abroads are the biggest pain in your behind you can find. Even worse is taking students abroad, if for some reason you are semi-responsible for their well being. Having to look for an emergency health clinic at midnight, in a small island in Nicaragua, because one student with diabetes decided it was a good idea to drink half a bottle of rum is not fun. Such experience makes me avoid study abroad trips like the plague, unless somebody gives me a chaperone and I am only responsible for the teaching.
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