Spring term starts with a (YAWN) is it bedtime yet?

Spring term started on Monday this week, after a shorter-than-normal spring break that wasn’t really a break. I knew going in it would be a tough term workload-wise — 2 full courses plus an every-other-week colloquium plus my research group plus FPC plus wrapping up my leadership of the cohort program I coordinate. I was somewhat prepared for that coming in to the term, although I am still a bit alarmed at the lack of whitespace whenever I open my work calendar. As I told my therapist at my last session, the second course is a multiplier in terms of time added to my schedule, not additive. More time in the classroom, more prep time, more students in office hours, more staff meetings to coordinate, more things to keep track of.

I was not, however, prepared for the sheer level of exhaustion every single day.

My “tell” when I’ve reached my limit is that everything becomes intolerable. Everything is too loud, too messy, too chaotic. I want everything to be quite, calm, and orderly. When you live in a house with teens / tweens, multiple pets, and an extroverted partner who works from home, calm / quiet / orderly is non-existent. I have been an absolute nightmare to my family the past few nights because they’ve had the audacity to exist and be their usual boisterous selves. I may have threatened to move out at least twice last night at dinner.

Paradoxically, I can’t wind down at night either because I’m so keyed up from exhaustion and from all the things from the day. I’ll try to do something sensible, like work on a craft project, but then get caught up in a Pinterest rabbit hole trying to figure out what the “best” thing to do with my leftover yarn is, or what yarn might be the closest match for this other pattern I want to make because the original yarn doesn’t exist anymore….and then it’s past my bedtime and I never actually got around to doing the craft project and now I’m both frustrated and exhausted.

I recognize that things will likely improve soon. I’ll get used to the rhythms of this particular teaching schedule. I’ll get to know my students better, which will remove the layer of exhaustion caused by interacting with people I don’t know well and trying to figure them out. The startup costs of a term are real, and those will subside and be replaced with more predictability. And, most importantly, I will get a bit of a break this weekend, something I haven’t been able to say in a long time.

And maybe, in the interim, I’ll find a teeny slice of whitespace in my calendar and put my head down on my desk for a few minutes, so that I’m not always bringing my absolute worst self home to my family.

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Spring “break”

On Sunday, I graded the final assignment for my winter term course, finalized the project grades, assigned letter grades to each student, and entered them into the system. Winter term: done!

Then I immediately turned around and started prepping for spring term. Spring break: nonexistent!

The turnaround between winter and spring terms is usually pretty short: a week to get grades in, a week to prep. There’s not a lot of time left to take a true break, but at the very least you can conceivably take one weekend completely off and maybe a full weekday.

When our term starts on a Wednesday, as it did this year, it’s shorter still: finals ended on a Wednesday, grades were due the following Monday (meaning 4 days later, including 2 weekend days), and spring term classes start the Monday after that. Realistically, this means at least some work both weekends (finalizing grades one weekend, finalizing syllabi the next) and very little room for a break otherwise.

Ugh.

Not taking any break at all is not an option, unless I want to be a nonfunctional puddle of goo by midway through spring term. Particularly since I’m teaching 2 full courses in the same term (plus a 1-credit colloquium), something I haven’t done in years due to various course releases. One of those courses — Intro — I haven’t taught since Spring 2019, so I’m a bit rusty, to say the least. So I had to get a bit creative to carve out some time for restoration.

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I settled on taking one weekday (yesterday) completely off. I got outside on my fatbike (because early spring in Minnesota is just an extension of winter), read, took a nap, booked our summer vacation, and took care of some life tasks on the old to-do list. And I made good progress on my latest craft project.

I won’t say the one day off magically rejuvenated me completely and I’m definitely NOT going into spring term restored and refreshed, but it did help. Knowing I didn’t have to get back to work at some point during the day meant that I could actually enjoy what I was doing, when I was doing it. And knowing that I blocked this particular day off means that I don’t have to spend the days I am working worrying about when I’ll get certain life tasks done or pining to get outside for a few hours (although I won’t completely rule out another outdoor adventure before the break ends).

The day off also reminded me of the importance of taking regular breaks throughout the term. Meaning: working on weekends (except for my Sunday night planning sessions) should be the exception and not the norm, and midterm break should be an actual break from work and not a catch-up day or a Schedule All The Meetings day. (For me, at least; I know many of my colleagues use the day off as a catch-up or as a place to put a bunch of meetings, and that’s absolutely fine too.) I can’t be there for my students, or my kids and partner, or my colleagues as my best self if I’ve burned myself out, so breaks are an important work and life task.

Here’s hoping I remember this in the thick of spring term when 8273 things are vying for my attention.