English 100— Week 2, Meeting 3.
Not sure how I’m going to make it through the semester, possibly my last. And I know so many people that, like the wine industry when I left, are saying, “But you’re so good at it… people love you when you…” Yeah, well, time to move on. Being an adjunct over the past 12 years has only obstructed and interfered with other efforts and endeavors. Tonight’s class went well, though. Essentially lecturing from the heart and nearly no notes. I didn’t wing it, I trusted my Self. My ability to lecture and share/generate ideas. I’m concerned, though, about when the semester really gets going, becomes a nonstop storm of papers. But maybe it doesn’t have to be, I think. Tomorrow will be easier, with me getting out of the office at 5, not having class till 7. Can get some grading done, and that’s the key, stay on top of that paper-stacking foulness. Have to stay in calm’s pose. This is just Day 1 of such a day. 30 minutes to get from Sebastopol Road and whatever-street to SRJC. I can do it. I will do it. Rewarding the writer with some Cabernet the sis gifted me the other day when I stopped by. Need it. And yes, NEED. Poured self a soothing pour, needed and deserved stemless goblet full of the Bordeaux bull.
The English 100 class has me humbled, frankly, after tonight. After the quickly compiled and accumulating prod of stress making it nearly difficult to focus on the drive from Roseland’s district to campus. But I did it. Today. Rest of the days? Well, I have to. That simple. I’ll wake early, hopefully, when wife does for her bootcamp whatever, make coffee tonight and start chugging right when I get up. Grade a couple pieces, if I can. And if not, then write— This semester. All projects not only on hold but pushed into a literary coma. Will only think of waking when the last grade is submitted. And that’s the key, to all of this. The grading. The thing that holds me up semester after semester and what always affects my mood in the most torrential and terrible way of ways. Just put a fucking grade on it, I tell myself. But do I? No. Procrastinate, instead. Fool.
This semester, my last or no, will be my best, the most enjoyable for me and anyone registered, and the most self-educating. The office new, today my first full day, will serve as my freeway for self-discovery and building not just a career but creative life and fold, dimension, self-sect. This will work, and it will be challenging, demanding, painful… but like I told the students tonight, as I do every semester, “the main character has to hurt. And guess who the main character is in your story…. YOU.” Beginning week two, I centralize in this project, logging the entire semester. I, not failed. Not in any aspect or tilt, pan, scene, theatre. Today affirmed my elation in December’s end.