The same but different

I have finished my second week teaching after a four-year "retirement" and it has been weird in these ways.

1. It is weird to be teaching in a "dumb" classroom- no computer, no web access, no way to do PowerPoint presentations. Most of the classrooms have long since been converted to "smart" classrooms, except, of course, the one to which I have been assigned in McMinnville. So... I have been teaching the old fashioned way... and enjoying the hell out of it. My students seem to be handling it all right as well.
2. It is weird to be an adjunct at the teaching site where, for 10 years, I was the sole biology faculty assigned there full-time and was the lab supervisor as well. It isn't "my" lab any more, but it looks great and the new kid is doing a bang up job being the new me.
3. After years of bitterness about never having a proper office - cubicle hell does nothing for your status as a professional- I would now give my eye-teeth for a cubicle; the MCMI center is being expanded and the adjuncts have been shifted to the library.
4. It is weird having to get up in response to an alarm again. I like to sleep in.

Being back in the saddle is also wonderful in these ways:

1. It is wonderful to be working among the good folks at the MCMI center, and with my beloved biology colleagues Bob, Marcia and Jackie.
2. It is wonderful to be interacting with students again. I have missed that, and I have two extraordinarily nice sets of students with whom I really enjoy interacting.
3. As funny as this may sound, it is wonderful to be doing the class-room prep work again. It is time consuming, but it is also stimulating and satisfying.
4. And it's wonderful to get paid.

So, while my hubby cavorts down under and my grandchildren continue to snub me, it is good to be doing something I didn't really know I loved until I stopped doing it.

AND NOW... the TOP TEN reasons why it is better to be an adjunct than full-time faculty.

10. You don't HAVE to teach anything unless you want to. The administration can't arbitrarily assign you wherever they please and NOT pay you for travel. Teach a class in Smyrna?! I think not!

9. You don't have to work full time. (I am putting in a grueling 10-hour week. I'm EXHAUSTED!)

8. You don't have to keep office hours, (which, seeing that I don't have an office, is a good thing).

7. You don't have to accept any committee assignments. (While I was full-time, I edited the Stall News, served on Faculty Council, Academic Affairs, Financial Aid, Post-Tenure Review, SACS, the Science Discipline Grant Application Committee, and several text-book selection committees, to name just a few I can remember).

6. You don't have to attend any meetings. (Most meetings left me feeling angry, frustrated, abused and resentful- and those were just the discipline meetings).

5. You don't have to sponsor any activities.

4. You don't have to work registrations.

3. You can pick and choose the hours you teach. (Remind me NOT to accept a 9:25 class in MCMI ever again- I like to sleep in. I hate alarm clocks. I am being redundant).

2. You can bitch all you want and don't have to worry about being politic.

1. You get to focus on just the part of the job that you love- WHICH IS TEACHING!