To teach, or not to teach... what a dilemma!

My answering machine is always complaining that I never listen to it, which is patently untrue. I listened to it last Friday. I ‘d left the house for the first time since my hand surgery, which went well, thank you, though the pain pills are better for causing indigestion than they are for curbing pain. And, of course, the minute I left the house, someone interesting called.

That someone was the division secretary of the college for which I used to teach. She’s a sharp cookie; she practically runs the math and science division single-handedly, and is the picture you see when you look up the word “competence” in the dictionary. She’s also a lot of fun. But I digress. She was calling to ask if I would be interested in teaching a genetics class this fall as an adjunct. She was calling on Friday. She needs an answer by Monday.

Remember, constant readers, three things:
I left the college so I could travel with my hubby, who is gone most of the time.
I recently had hand surgery and am still recovering from it.
I have been out of the teaching field for almost three years.
I hate making choices, especially ones that must be made quickly.
Okay, so that’s four things. I was in the science half of the math and science division.

There are advantages, believe it or not, to being an adjunct rather than a full-time faculty member, but none of them are monetary. The first advantage is that you don’t HAVE to teach anything you don’t want to. Don’t want to teach nights? Okay. Only want to teach one class? Okay. Only want to work two days a week? Okay. You don’t have to work registrations, do student advisement, serve on committees, or try to work professional development into an already over-crowded schedule. And if you don’t want to travel to satellite campuses, they can’t make you.

I spent 10 years commuting almost an hour each way to a site where I was, for all intents and purposes, the science department. Other faculty cycled in and out, but I was assigned there and was the lab supervisor there. I loved the campus, loved my co-workers, loved my students, loved teaching. I also hated my cubicle- in my entire career, I was in a bull-pen all but one semester- hated the long hours, hated fighting for every reasonable, necessary and logical thing with a bureaucracy that was a disinterested 47 miles away, and hated being treated with disrespect by the people who should have valued me. Towards the end, even the commute was becoming hateful. Those two hours out of every day were beginning to take their toll. Over time, I became very unhappy with my job.

But never with teaching. I have really missed teaching. So teaching this class will be a good thing, right?

Then again… it will take a lot of work to get prepared on short notice, and I have gotten kinda lazy being semi-retired. All my teaching materials are scattered, stored or outdated, so I will essentially be starting from scratch. Teaching the class will cut seriously into my scrapbooking time, but my clipped wing is going to do that anyway. It will call a temporary halt to my trips to San Diego, and I really enjoy my trips to San Diego, even though Mama tries valiantly to give me an ulcer with her antics while I am gone. If I take the job, Mama will be happy because I won’t be traveling, but I’m not sure how well I could weather 15 solid weeks of Mama without a break. I don’t have a professional wardrobe anymore… then again, that’s easily solved and I do love to shop. I don’t know. I’m torn.

I have been weighing the pros and cons and asking everyone’s advice. My daughter has disdained to offer any. David thinks I should do it. My friend Marcia thinks I should do it. My Dad is vehemently opposed to my doing it.

Damn. I have to have an answer for them tomorrow. I wonder what I am going to say. I will be on pins and needles until I find out.

Stay tuned.