Moving Forward while Sick

Things have been crazy. On the heels of getting well from one ear infection (taking the last dose of medicine), Absurdist Tot got another one. He went back to daycare today after being sick most of last week. Sigh. Of course, this means I'm sick again too. And last night AT woke up in the middle of the night and came to bed with us so I barely got any sleep next to little Mr. Fitful Sleeper!

Maybe it's that I'm sick and sleep-deprived right now, but I feel as if I've forgotten everything I know about teaching. Case in point: I'm teaching this great elective and the students have all sorts of interesting questions and topics they want to address. But we never get it all done. Each day I feel like we're leaving more and more cool stuff we could be reflecting on behind. I'm having trouble figuring out how to roll up all the stuff we're doing forward. Maybe this is because the readings we're doing right now address sort of similar stuff but from very different disciplinary perspectives. That might be part of it. But I'm just at a loss. I don't want to lose these other threads that students are bringing up. And I keep asking them to do these in-class writings and then we don't have time to discuss them much. But I think the point with the in-class writings is to do them, to experience them, not necessarily to talk about them, which I guess I should say in class. I don't know. I'm tired, I guess. If anyone has any tips for carrying the threads of class discussion forward in good ways, I'm all ears.

Also, despite telling myself to not engage in a zillion service obligations, I've found that I'm engaged in a couple email conversations that really get to the core of some of the work I want to do and I can feel myself wanting to be a mover and shaker on these issues. Down, girl, down. I'm laying groundwork. I'm also trying to develop a more cooperative and supportive style, rather than trying to storm the castle all by myself.

I've almost been here a year and I can really feel it, with my annual report due in a couple months and different end-of-year tasks on my to-do list. This is an interesting time. I'm not getting any research done yet, but I'm hopeful that once I'm well I'll have more energy.