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Blarghasaurus Rex. This teaching gig is kind of rough. There are two hours of lecture every day, which I must attend. I also have to hold 2 hours of office hours each week. That's a total of 12 hours of face time, plus the inevitable additional time right before and after class.
There are a total of 10 problem sets for students to complete during the class, so between the two of us TAs, we will each grade 5. I spent the entire afternoon yesterday completing the first one, and from the looks of things, almost the entire afternoon today grading the second one (I took a "break" briefly to work on an experiment with D, and just now to write this).
Someday, maybe I'll get to do science again. This mostly stresses me out because I'm still delaying the start of the summer's Big Experiment. I need to do some data analyses before I start the experiment because I need to make sure I'll get some cool and useful information out of it.
In some respects, this stresses me out. In other respects, I just figure, well, trying to graduate 1.5 years from now is a lofty goal, given my many unknowns, and hopefully things will work out okay even if I don't make that time deadline. Either way, I'm clearly going to have to work my tail off. It all makes me wonder, does anybody ever really figure out the whole work-life balance thing? I suppose there are some who feel they do, and I'd guess it's not actually people with inherited wealth. I have to wonder if it's based on a person's personality in such a way that it's hard to switch from feeling imbalanced to feeling balanced.
I know that my type of academic work inherently involves a lot of crests and troughs, but I'm still uncertain about whether or not I handle them appropriately, and I still wonder if I really actually work hard enough, with the proper focus on the proper subjects.
*
Also, don't write prescriptive responses in the comments on this post, because, well, that's just annoying. But go ahead and write reflective responses. :-)
There are a total of 10 problem sets for students to complete during the class, so between the two of us TAs, we will each grade 5. I spent the entire afternoon yesterday completing the first one, and from the looks of things, almost the entire afternoon today grading the second one (I took a "break" briefly to work on an experiment with D, and just now to write this).
Someday, maybe I'll get to do science again. This mostly stresses me out because I'm still delaying the start of the summer's Big Experiment. I need to do some data analyses before I start the experiment because I need to make sure I'll get some cool and useful information out of it.
In some respects, this stresses me out. In other respects, I just figure, well, trying to graduate 1.5 years from now is a lofty goal, given my many unknowns, and hopefully things will work out okay even if I don't make that time deadline. Either way, I'm clearly going to have to work my tail off. It all makes me wonder, does anybody ever really figure out the whole work-life balance thing? I suppose there are some who feel they do, and I'd guess it's not actually people with inherited wealth. I have to wonder if it's based on a person's personality in such a way that it's hard to switch from feeling imbalanced to feeling balanced.
I know that my type of academic work inherently involves a lot of crests and troughs, but I'm still uncertain about whether or not I handle them appropriately, and I still wonder if I really actually work hard enough, with the proper focus on the proper subjects.
*
Also, don't write prescriptive responses in the comments on this post, because, well, that's just annoying. But go ahead and write reflective responses. :-)
