And Just Like That, A Return to the Crazy. Poof! Where'd That Sabbatical Go? There's No Easing Back In. It's All-Encompassing Right Away

Yesterday I was up by 6:30 a.m. and teaching by 8. From there, I worked for a couple of hours, then took a mental break and walked Glamis for an hour. I then proceeded to work until 11 p.m. when I said, "Crandall, this is enough. You can't get back into those normal habits again." Thank the Great Whatever I prepared meals over the weekend in anticipation of the schedule ahead. I told Chitunga, "There should be food until Wednesday, but then we have to make a plan. Get ready to order out, because I don't have it in me to cook, too."

Light edits were sent my way on one project (which I took care of quickly), and then I received news about another project that is highly intriguing. I'm on it as soon as I can get on it. Actually, I got on part of it right away, just because the challenge offered was beautifully delicious in a complicated, almost-impossible, but-gosh-darn-it-I'll-try kind of way. I'm always fascinated by having to do something new. It excites me in ways the predictable and routine makes me want to run and hide.

Returning to the realities of ZOOM-teaching was okay...but after success last Spring and over the summer, then having no responsibilities to teach in the Fall, I sort of grew sad for continuing the online interaction. At least for the first class, I want to hand out items, gifts, warm-fuzzies, kits-for-success, and writer's notebooks. I want to do team building, to have laughter, to cut cake and have candy galore. Alas, I could only have the crew click coffee mugs to their screens. 

Obviously, teaching is a passion. But I've thoroughly enjoyed full-time writing, creating, networking, and dreaming, too. It is not my nature to say that teaching gets in the way of what I'm doing, but it definitely take a tremendous amount of time to do it with integrity and care. I'm strategic about keeping my writing/project focus very closely tied with the courses I'm teaching, too. I wrote a lot over the last 5 months and had great success. I don't want that to end. I want to do more of it, in fact.

I don't have the summers off from teaching and advising like most faculty, as that is my busy season with the youth programs and teaching institutes I run. That is my happy season, as I'm able to build youth and teacher leaders within the National Writing Project tradition. It's also work that requires grant-writing and reporting...with "We regret to inform you," at a much higher percentage than, "Congratulations. On behalf of...."

I do know, though, that I need to be more strategic with my commitments, my time, the direction I take with my own leadership, and the belief system I use to make professional decisions. It's not the teaching, research, or service that does me in....I love that ebb & flow. It's the excess that comes from others that filter into the every day work teachers and I do that distracts...that is, doing the work created by others for purposes that don't help the teachers, students, or young people I work with...

...it was the same in K-12 teaching. The best leaders protect you from it...others pile it on without any reason or explanation why it's needed.

Ah, the quicksand feeling is already here, and it is only Week 1. But I have another day of planning and teaching, so I'd better blog early and quit my belly-aching. 

Happy Tuesday.