Do you ever find you have to actively decompress after a lecture? Or after a day of lecturing? Or a week? I’ve found this semester that I live for Thursday night — it’s the only night of the week I have no prep to do (I teach Monday through Thursday), and because it’s not the weekend I don’t feel the weight of my perpetual weekend to-do list hanging over me. So Thursday nights are sacred, devoted to catching up on television (this week I had a mini Being Erica marathon, as I was woefully behind) and passing out on the couch long before most people hit the hay.
I’m continually amazed by how exhausting teaching is. I’m on a four-four load, which is admittedly heavy (but only two preps this semester), so I knew I would be in for a heavy workload. But I had no idea how utterly drained I would be by the end of the week.
I know some people have post-class rituals to recoup — I have colleagues who disappear into their offices for the half-hour after class to veg for a moment (I used my after-class breaks to play Frontierville for this very reason until something happened to the Flash on my work computer), but I’m finding this time gets absorbed by students who have just one question or who want to talk for just one second. (We have quite different versions of one-ness, as I am learning.)
As a doctoral candidate, when I was only teaching one class I found it energizing. Compared to the solitary nature of research, it was social and active and exciting. Compared to the breakneck speed with which I did my dissertation, teaching felt leisurely, accommodating, and luxurious. But the difference between teaching to break up the day and teaching because it’s my full time job is staggering.
I do love it, though, and the funny thing is that no matter how exhausted I am heading into class, but the time I’m in front of the class I’m “on” and any concept of tiredness utterly dissolves away. But I think I pay for that “on” time with compound interest.
One way I’ve been decompressing is to set aside a little time every day for fun, non-analytical reading — even if it’s just a page or two before bed. I find it reminds me of why I love my discipline so much to give myself permission to just get lost in a story, even for only a little bit of time, every day. (To that end, I just finished reading The White Queen by Philippa Gregory, which I thoroughly enjoyed — I like Gregory’s approach to historical fiction and I love that she includes an afterword to tell readers what’s historical record and what’s imagination. And I always find a few titles in her bibliographies to add to my to-read list. I know she drives some experts in the fields she writes about crazy, but that’s the benefit of not being an expert in her field. Although, my goodness, either Gregory or her editor is trying desperately to destroy the reputation of the semicolon.)
I’d love to hear if other full-time teachers/professors/instructors experience this crash and how you manage it.