And the craziness continues....

I had no idea that it had been so long since I last posted. I am a terrible blogger! But I have an excuse, I swear..... I last left off talking about how I was offered two classes at one of the community colleges in town. I accepted those two classes and made the arrangements to cut back my hours at my full-time job and then leave at the beginning of March. The first class started in January, but the second was a short-term class that didn't start until mid-March. I thought about staying with the company, but I only would have had about 15 hours a week available, so I decided that it was time to move on and completely immerse myself in the world of teaching (and finding more teaching gigs for when the semester ended).

I want to digress a bit to talk about the company I left. I worked there for 5 years and almost 10 months, the longest I have ever worked anywhere. When I got the job, it was just something part time to do while I got my Master's, nothing serious, and it paid well (always important for single mom/student). When I finished my Master's, I went full time, got a substantial raise, and felt like I had a grown-up job. It was good for a couple years, until the economy tanked. I still had the job, but none of the cool, fun parts - I was back to the administrative stuff that I had long grown out of. I was overqualified for that work when I took it as a part-timer all those years ago! I was dissatisfied there. It was definitely time to move on.

At a time when people are fortunate to have jobs at all, I quite a stable job with excellent benefits in order to fully enter the unpredictable world of adjunct faculty (scroll down). My semesters are never certain, and I don't know how much I will be working in the coming months - my fate is in the hands of schedulers who fit me in once all of the full timers and other adjuncts with more seniority have been given their desired schedules. To get one class is considered lucky.

I consider myself lucky. I was offered the two English classes having never met the instructor doing the scheduling - all he had was my resume with one class as previous teaching experience. One class! He took a chance, and I am so glad he did because if he hadn't, I wouldn't be teaching right now. I would still be sitting in that cubicle, wondering what else I could be doing with my grown-up life.

And I'm lucky because after I quit the job, I received a call from a business school in town that I had been hoping to hear from. Would I be able to teach two classes for their upcoming quarter? My initial response, was how can I possibly teach two classes over there? I'm still learning this whole teaching thing!! Of course, once I looked over our budget for the coming months, I realized that my only possible response was yes, that would be absolutely no problem. I went from one class last fall to four classes in April. I knew I was in for long days, nights, and weekends. That is one heck of a lot of essays to grade!

And grade like a maniac I did. In mid-April, I started at the business school, which operates year round on a quarter schedule. In mid-May, I finished at the community college, a long 18-semester. In that month, I had new classes to prep (I'm a newbie to all of this, so every class I teach is new to me - that means TONS of prep), research papers to grade, and final exams to write. I had to leave the house to get the grading done - the employees at Panera must have thought I was a complete masochist, working two straight days at a corner table with large stacks of papers and my trusty red pen.

That month was so busy. I could barely remember my name or where I was supposed to be at any given time. Laundry got washed and dried, but rarely got beyond the pile in the living room. Thank goodness Howard was home and not out in the field because we would have had no clean dishes, and the kids would have been lucky to eat (well Spencer anyway, Christian can fend for himself). My "office" began spreading - it started on the desk in the bedroom, took up residence in the living room, acquired a third of the kitchen table, and finally overtook the sacred "Mary Kay Room," since there was no longer time to run a business.

And so the craziness continues. There are four weeks left in the quarter at the business school, and I still don't know what the schedule is for next quarter. I could have one class, or three, or none. I hope it's three - my budget will love it, and I'll be busy, which I love, despite my complaints. (Maybe I just like to complain). On the other hand, if it's three, then I'll have four classes again when the semester starts for the state schools in August, as I did get a class at one of the community colleges for fall. At 7:00 AM. Ah, the life of adjunct faculty!

One giant leap...

The first two relaxing days of 2010 don't accurately represent the craziness that will be my life in the coming year. I was offered two English classes at another community college - I accepted! In order to teach both classes, I've had to cut back my hours at the job where I've worked since 2004. Starting Monday, I'll only be working there 30 hours a week until March 5, when I will be leaving my job and taking a giant leap into the unknown! One class is a late start that starts in March and runs for 9 weeks (double the time in class during the week). I could have stayed on at the other job for about 15 hours a week around the classes, but it's time to try new things and make a new path for myself.

I have 8 days to plan my class - syllabus, schedule, readings, essays, etc. I've been working on it and getting some things together, and I've been deciding how tough I want to be! My sister told me she'd be scared to take my class - I don't know if I should be flattered or seriously think about changing my approach! I'm leaning toward the former... There are so many good readings in the book for this class. I would love to teach all of them, but I know it's just not possible to fit them all in.

To fill in the income gap that will now exist between what I was making and what I will now be making (yeah, I didn't make this switch for the money), I will be focusing more on my Mary Kay business. I've started my business plan and have started listing my goals for my business. I want to start a newsletter for my customers, spend more time on customer service, keep my blog updated on a regular basis, and of course, build my business and my team in order to be a Sales Director by the end of summer this year.

Another opportunity I will have once I have left my job is to offer freelance editing services for businesses in the same industry. I won't be able to take on a lot of jobs, but with a good client base, I should have fairly consistent work. It won't be a huge money maker for me, but it will keep me up on my editing skills and will give us a little extra income (or maybe support a small shopping habit!). A blog just for my editing may be on the horizon.

I am so excited for 2010 and all the opportunities I have! This is going to be an interesting year to say the least. Happy New Year!