sure did agree to take over a course that isn't in my area of specialty full of books I haven't read

I'm sure it will go perfectly fine

jessie

You know, I've noticed this about you

FULL OF GOOD LIFE CHOICES EVERY TIME

it's online asynchronous and that means no one will judge me for recording a lecture at 4am on a saturday

but also lol I have never even heard of these books

It is a vital life skill. One I also lack. But good luck ;;

Jessie.

Godspeed and good luck.

F

please take care of yourself

thank you friends for the support I do not deserve

and apologies for the monster I will become in like two weeks as I reap what I have sown

the last time I met with my advisor I was like "im so stressed about money" and she was like "I understand you feel like you need to work this hard, but have you tried doing less so we can get you in a position where you have one good job and not four bad ones"

and I SEE THE LOGIC THERE and yet

oh dear ;;

please take care of yourself!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN CHI

you never see me sweat about workload things

ahahahaha /kicks all that mod stuff under the carpet

I have not once had a meltdown in mod chat

"Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem."

oh okay it's that kind of course

time to teach the children about murder in literature

OH Shirley Jackson is the Lottery author okay I can work with this

iirc her books also tend to be fairly short too, so quick reads

which is a relief because the class I'm taking over is in the middle of it

so I'm going to have to jump into it as soon as Amazon drops it on my door

but then there's "Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence." and I thought that looked like a fun YA book and then LOL over 300 pages

are fun YA books not short anymore

I'll survive

this syllabus is really minimal and includes 3 weeks with no activities so I'm.... not entirely sure what was intended? But it means I have room to do whatever I want

flexibility is good?

one of the benefits of this profession is that nobody will really care what happens as long as I get grades in on time and nobody complains about me

so insisting on doing a GOOD job is something else I really need to worry about less

Well could be worse, I guess? :\ Still!

i remember shirley jackson from my freshman high school english lol

we did so much focus on the lottery

I read the lottery in a first year comp course the first time I tried going to college

so it was art school comp where nobody wanted to care about writing and it was very clear that the traditional college classes were just there on paper so the school could keep accreditation

the professor seemed very surprised I could write decently but I was 17 and stupid and didn't appreciate it

my career path was very "chases things I'm not great at, eventually backslides into the thing people kept telling me I was good at"

I read that book once! "We Have Always Lived in the Castle", I mean. Mostly because the first line appeared on the top 5 of a 'best first lines of books' list and I found it at a cool second-hand book shop

it's a very quick read!

You can always stall for time by having them do a quick compare/contrast with more modern stuff that they can reference on their own, if you want? When do you have to start the class? D8

...also, I think Netflix made a movie of it? ...it might not have been Netflix. There is a movie of it, though, and it's fairly recent, and I vaguely recall it so it was probably just... you know, There.

yes! it had seb Stan and Saoirse Ronan and alexandra daddario in it

oh yes! I remember that now!

oh shit STALLING TIME WITH A MOVIE WEEK

I'm into that

climbs back into this plurk a week later because HAHAHAHAHAHA the students could tell everything was fucked long before I got involved

as it turns out, the previous professor (who is stilted and a little odd but a woman I love and will hear no ill of) set up some expectations and scaffolding, gave them due dates, but never actually checked in to explain what they were being graded on

they haven't had anything resembling a lecture

I was like "so... you guys just read and then write about your readings and nobody checks in on you to talk Literature in your literature class....?"

I get the feeling they were misrepresenting at least a little, since I found some recorded zoom calls with conferences in them

but the only things resembling "lectures" were these long uncomfortable meetings where she quizzed them on their knowledge of the syllabus

so. Gonna rewrite a lot of that

and thank you guys for suggesting a movie week - that idea went over REALLY well

it basically gives them a second week of spring break

it's a general studies class though, and I got the sense that some people were seniors just trying to coast to the end but that others were freshmen who were genuinely having palpitations at the idea of being asked to read 30 pages in a week

and it's basically midterm at this university Midterm is not the time to solve this problem

I'm at the place where my other class at this uni is basically on autopilot. Everyone's got the routine down and they just need me to show up and chat about the book we're reading. But it took like 7 weeks to get there

7? are we in week 7? what is time

more things I CAN do in theory, but do I have time to do them in practice? =X

oh no

woof yeah. At this point I think if they walk away knowing something new it will be a success.