Monday, July 30, 2007

it's all fun and games until someone loses a frakkin eye

I have rarely needed the blog outlet more, but unfortunately it would be completely unethical and unprofessional to vent my frustration here. Too damn bad.

I'm just worn out. It's frakkin hard being a mom, and this summer with Brent in CPE--gone from 7:30am to 6:00pm, and on call for 24 hours every 10 days--has meant intensive full-time parenting. Hard enough that I freaked out after the first week and called my mom for help and bought a bunch of toddler activity books and spent a great deal of $$ at Michaels on construction paper, tempera paint and bubbles, and occasionally get brave enough to put on my swim suit (bought 10 years ago) with all my mommy blubber hanging out, and take Clare to the swimming pool, just out of desperation for a fun activity that gets us both out of the single room we live in. Arrgh. Why I thought that teaching an online course on top of that would be negotiable God only knows. I think it was the money panic that made me think I should do it. After all, how else is a full-time mom/academic going to earn any money? But I had forgotten that online teaching means hours and hours of sitting in front of a computer. Saturday I literally spent the entire day staring at the computer screen, grading and grading and grading, setting up the innumerable Blackboard groups, writing email after email after email. But okay, that's just life. You have to work hard. And sometimes life sucks. But I really, really wish that I didn't have to do all this online work with Clare tugging at my arm, wailing because she feels ignored--because she is. This morning I wrote my daily email to the class while Clare nursed on my lap. Desperation. Guilt.

Maybe after the course is over, a review of the things I hate about Blackboard and the impersonality of online coursework as interruptor to effective pedagogical relationship. But more than likely not. One the course is over, we're moving, and once we're moved, it will finally be time to start dissertating, like I've been supposed to be doing this whole past year. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry things aren't going well; luckily Brent's unit should almost be over by now (in a couple weeks?). I've always hated online courses. When my wife and I were talking about whether she should attend UNT or TWU to obtain her M.Ed. we were basically weighing a program that was completely online (UNT) and one that required class attendance in Denton (TWU). We went with the latter primarily because of our lack of faith in online education to prepare students as well as a regular teacher/student and student/student relationship. Her employer told her that they don't even look at graduates from UNT because the online program prepares students so poorly for the job.

Good luck with the move, especially with all those books! Wishing you peace for what's ahead. shalom!

priscilla said...

You live in a stunning garden apartment with a balcony overlooking a lovely tree lined lane, with parquet floor and an outstanding bathroom decor. You can walk to Whole Foods (and Dunkin Donuts), and you are surrounded by nature. The squirrels twitter around, the deer are grazing - rather idyllic don't you think?
Quit your moaning.

JTB said...

Hmmm...we'll see whether or not I agree with the above after we move the big city...!

Anonymous said...

Totally unrelated to the blog. But check this out:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/6/story.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10455085

Anonymous said...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz
/section/6/story.cfm?c_id
=6&objectid=10455085