Such are the advantages of admitting that I can't do everything, and focusing instead on what I can do that I (and others) judge is important. I fully expect to get called on it someday, and then I'll do it differently, but for the moment (and the past x semesters) I have very little end-of-term grading to do. The students continue to tell me they learn more in my classes because they are forced to be active learners every class meeting. They also assure me that classes that make them write papers or take tests have not changed they way they approach the discipline or the content; but that our approach has by pushing them to synthesize what they've learned before with what they're getting now - and that is every class meeting. So even students who hate history (the traditional approach of names, dates, wars, etc that they got in high school) love my classes and demonstrate that they've learned.
The down side is that I'm feeling... lazy. There have been times in my life when I've multi-tasked the crap out of things. I was offered a job once because they'd watched me do 5 things at once and not consider it a big deal. I always found that exhilarating, and energizing even as it was exhausting. I felt like I was really using my talents and abilities and expanding them at the same time.
But now I've noticed that when I'm only having to do one or two things at a time, I feel like I'm not doing enough. Yet I resist doing more - particularly when I see people around me feeling put-upon for having to do one thing, or even two things. At the moment I'm holding off sending in a review because while I had it done within three days of receiving the article, I didn't want to appear to be rushing to judgement on it. I wanted to appear thoughtful and serious (thus credible). I am working on a rewrite of a Major Policy, and am somewhat embarrassed when my committee colleagues profess themselves too swamped to do their part and praise me lavishly for doing what took me maybe... twenty minutes. And that twenty minutes was interrupted by students needing hand-holding, departmental schedules needing review for immediate submission to the dean, end-of-term evaluations being divided up between (resisting) faculty colleagues and the other stuff that emerges when one's door is left open.
Here's the thing: I feel boredom bearing down on me. I'm complacent; and that is not good. I've lost my oomph for research. And I want it back!






