I have a bomb in my backpack...

I know it's mostly my attitude, I know I need therapy for this and other issues, but as far as I'm concerned right not, a pile of mid-semester evaluations (which know I administered way too late in the semester to be able to implement very significant changes) is a bomb with great potential to destroy my self-esteem for a good while and to send me into the depths of despair for a while.

I hastily wrote and printed them out over 10 days ago, but then there were only 6 of the 11 students in class, and I put it off for another day. Then I got really cold feet about it and had given up on doing it, but then K encouraged me to do it. He's supposed to read them all and report back to me... to soften the blow.

These are evaluations for the class I'm extremely unhappy with. I already know that my teaching isn't good at all and that the textbook I selected is partly lame. I've never taught this level before and there aren't many, if any materials (i.e. textbooks and such) out there.

In fact, there is a DIRE need of textbooks for this particular course -- which one faculty member (the coordinator of the Spanish classes of the same level whom I met with in order to re-structure the course) suggested is a great opportunity for me, to write a textbook! (maybe it is, but why would I do that as I continue to be a poorly paid adjunct?).

In any case, I changed the course a couple of times after I finally met with the aforementioned professor (younger than me! Pretty bright and nice guy), but I basically haven't spent much, if any, time preparing materials to teach, given that there is A LOT of grading (each student is going to write 26 short compositions total and 3 longer, fully graded compositions).

I think about this course a lot, but I don't really act much. I struggled a lot at the beginning with how heterogeneous the class was (some students basically fluent, others not so much) and with how many basic mistakes they were making in their writing (some still are). And just thinking of how my own beginner/intermediate students will be so much better prepared next year just to have someone else "reap the fruit" of my hard labor makes me angry.

So there's a lot of angst involved with teaching this particular class -- on top of my sheer lack of experience and the GLARING lacks of the textbook that I'm doing next to nothing to compensate for because I don't want to kill myself working. I know I'm lazy, but I also know that I do a lot already, commute long hours, etc. I am a hard-headed person at times, set in not working more than I should, just doing the basics because I know I'm just "working in the margins" (yes, I do use that as an excuse).

OK, so this is only a "small" thing in the grand scheme of things, just the tip of the iceberg... my "quiet despair" runs very deep right now, and I'm going to write another post to discuss the bulk of it.

I'm sorry for the Blah posts, but I need to process these things before I can move on and try to act and DO what I need to do. :(