Work, etc.

How busy has your summer been so far? If it has been anything like mine, then the answer would probably be "very." Yet as early as a month ago, I was patting myself on the back for a job well done applying to all those schools last fall, thinking I'd take it easy over the summer, maybe read a few books, write a lot, and relax. Nope.

Not if you want to hit the ground running in your first year of grad school. Relatively speaking, of course. All the preparation in the world can't replace actually going to grad school. But you can do is prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. And preparing for the worst, I've found, is a lot of work. This summer, I have to:

• Move from one city to another.
  
• Write -- New, sparkly stories that will validate my program's confidence in me!
• Read -- Read what, you may ask? A ton of stuff:
• My professors' works.
• Works for my upcoming craft class.
• Textbooks for my TAship.
• Anything else that I would normally read for fun. A low priority, considering what's listed above.
• Prepare for my TAship.

The above list may look small. Innocent, even. But it is by no means easy. For example, for the last bullet point, I emailed the TA Director a few days ago, asking for some guidance on teaching preparation for the fall, and happily, he provided me with a great deal of information, of which were: two textbooks (Did you know that you can get those suckers for free if you contact the publishers and let them know you're teaching that class? Free stuff rules.), a syllabus, and some journal readings on topics that I'll be expected to teach. The reading, while not exactly tiny stuff, isn't what scares me about teaching, though. I don't mind work. It's the act of teaching, the whole getting up in front of twenty or so students, and talking for fifty minutes, three times a week. How in the heck do you prepare for that? The syllabus provides some structure in this respect. As will the week-long orientation for all teaching assistants before school starts. In fact, I'm fairly confident in the University's ability to prepare their students to teach come fall, yet the simple fact is that all the preparation in the world cannot replace the knowledge gained from actually experiencing something. I'm not scared of the prospect of teaching (okay, maybe I am just a little; I despise public speaking), I'm really more looking forward to the day where I don't have to consciously worry about it.