Something I thought about:
- This was my big transition week — CELTA is over, I had to wrap up fall term grading and grades, and then I updated course materials for spring teaching. Transitions always involve quite a bit of juggling and a temptation to multi-task, which is counter productive for me, so I’ve been thinking about how to slow myself down and focus on completing one thing after another instead of trying to do everything at once and spinning in place. Chunking work helped. I also didn’t let myself begin spring term setup until grades were in (exam period ended the same day as my CELTA, so there was a week to complete the transition). This both motivated me to finish and kept me focused. All in all, I didn’t get through everything I wanted to do, but I finished everything I had to do.
Something I did:
- Finished grading portfolios.
- Submitted grades.
- Opened spring course section sign ups.
- Updated spring term course materials, set up the Moodle, etc.
- Said yes to several things.
- Received my CELTA provisional certificate with a Pass B! I’m pleased.
Something I read:
- Golden Ax by Rio Cortez
- Sylvia Plath died 60 years ago today. I wonder how many of us felt like the writer of this piece?
“I am one of countless poets who developed an obsession with Sylvia Plath after being introduced to her work as a teenager, and her writing became a catalyst for my own. I recited her poems out loud in my bedroom, just as I would sing along to my favourite songs. The poems’ cadences sank into me, the way Plath sank into my own personal mythology, long before any other writers did.”
