Stike up the Hallelujah Chorus!

I've been singing it since noon today! That was when I officially put the finishing touches on Spring 2010 semester at my college! Last paper graded, last grade posted, put away the books and papers and it is finished!

It was a good semester in all. Nice students, highly motivated, lots of progress made, but a lot of work. This semester I went over my allotted 9 hours of teaching duties that adjunct faculty were supposed to teach and I taught 12 hours. Plus, throw in the responsibilities of a Program Coordinator, it was very busy! I don't remember any day when I was in the office or classroom when I was bored! Too much to do to be bored.

I started to figure out how many papers I actually graded this semester. It was way over 1000, that was just for one type of assignment for one class. Then there were the essays, from my class, from other teachers' classes, special projects that the students worked on, on and on and on!

When I took those two weeks off to travel to the Galapagos Islands, it was double work to get ready for others to take over the classes, then double duty to grade all the work they did while I was gone. Throw that in on top of the end of the semester tests and papers, and there were times when I felt like I'd never see the light of day.

During two nights last week, I woke up at about 1 a.m. from nightmares. In one nightmare, someone was hitting my face with a hammer. Another nightmare found me being strangled by some type of wires. I tried to analyze the dreams and figured it was the JOB that was the perpetrator of those assaults on my vital processes! Didn't take much to figure that out!

So, it is over for now. I am grateful that I am still alive and have survived the entire process. A couple of weeks ago, I wasn't so sure I was going to be a survivor.

The word "retirement" has flitted through my mind more than once during the past few weeks. I hope the career can last a little longer, because I really do enjoy my work! Just need a break, that's all!

On to "The Producers"! Sewing machines, here we go!