Land of Confusion

"Confusion is always the most honest response." Marty Indik

Today was spent trying to organize all the paperwork from my courses and figure out a master schedule of what is due when. It's taken all day and I'm still not done. I'm also trying to organize the online class I will be teaching.

When I accepted this assignment, I thought I'd be getting a course template. I'm an adjunct and the last time I taught an online course the Dean provided me with a model course as a guideline. Actually, she suggested that I used the course as is for one semester and then decide how I wanted to change it. That worded out well.

This time, no template. Or, I should say, not a template that's ready to use. So it's up to me to design and write the course. Ugh. I never would have taken the assignment if I had known that. But now, it's the only job I have, the only course I'm teaching and since I would like to eat and be able to pay my bills, I'm teaching it.

It's hard for me to organize now. I get distracted easily. In a recent conversation, I admitted that I feel like I have an insight into what people with ADD must feel like. With me, I at least have a "normal" to refer to, but with people who have disorders like this - this IS their normal. Their lives are just difficult. They don't know why. They don't know how to change it. They don't even know there is anything else. I don't know what's worse. Knowing what you used to be, or knowing only difficulty.

Thankfully, I have good days and bad days. There are times, usually when I'm relaxed and in a good mood and have eaten well and gotten enough sleep (yeah, how often does that happen?), that I approach my pre-accident level of information processing. At other times, anything above silence is too much. When that happens, I just shut down. I can't talk, I can't think, I can't type, all I do is sit and stare.

I've been doing OK with most of the reading for classes. At least I think I have. There is still a lot that I don't retain if I'm tired or distracted. Rereading has become my new pastime. There have been times where I've reread an entire chapter and thought it was "new" until I got to the end and found a bit of highlighting or a margin note from the first time I read it. Disheartening? You bet.

Hope springs eternal that I will remember all the important bits and, thankfully, I don't think any of my classes will have fact based tests. I get the ideas. I just can't remember the names of the people who came up with the ideas.

Right, back to building my course with an eye toward clarity and economy of words.