turn your frown into a smile, come and listen for a while

~ Jim Noir

Mary Oliver's poems just may save my sanity: beautiful, serene and poignant.

Recently, in the overwhelming profession I now am a part of, I get down...really down. They say teaching gives you the highest highs and lowest lows, but the highs are worth it. So far, I agree, but my perfectionism coupled with living in the suburbs away from friends and any semblance of social life has a tendency to make things look a little bleak. But, it's okay. I will keep calm and carry on, as the famous WWII poster from the UK says.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

it was not my imagination?

~The Cranberries (Just My Imagination)

Signs of the apocalypse. Let me set the scene for you: January 5, 2009, around 10:30am, this girl will (perhaps) realize that she is about to step into a college general chemistry course at SPU for the first time. "What?" you say. "Katie, you took general chemistry in 2002 at SPU!"

You're right. But this time...I'll be teaching it. Oh holy night. In some strange twist of fate and/or gross overestimation of my skills, I've been hired as a full-time adjunct Chemistry professor at SPU for winter quarter and for one class spring quarter. I have an office. A computer. A teacher's edition of the textbook. A barf bag on hand for when I come to my senses and realize I'm going to be responsible for about 75 university students in less than two months while also taking my own university courses. My professors, now peers. My peers, now my sheep to herd. The universe may implode.

A view of the registration options:



..and, get this: they're trusting me to teach an upper division PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY course! It's going to be quite an eleven-week cluster#%*@.


Join me, if you will, on this six month adventure as I learn to teach high school Chemistry while concurrently teaching university Chemistry. You thought I dropped off the face of the planet while I was in graduate school in Oregon? You ain't seen nothin' yet.