OMG, family is stressful. I’ve been in tears more than once, and I’ve only been here a week. Still, I love them and it’s worth it and yadda yadda yadda. I’m trying to use this time to relax and rejuvenate, and to a certain extent, I am being successful.
Here’s a sad thing: I love to read, but my job burns me out on reading so much that I rarely read anymore. Lately, enough time has passed since I’ve had the kind of heavy teaching/workload that requires me to read tens of hundreds of pages of student writing each semester. After several months of rest, I realized I wanted to read! I’ve been reading so much! I haven’t read like this in years and years and years. I hope that my full-time job leaves me with enough energy to read for pleasure. I have been warned that pre-tenure is like graduate school, but worse, more stressful. I can’t imagine that will be the case. I’m hoping it will be more of the same, with about one challenging first year where I learn the ropes. After that, I hope it is all very manageable and in check and taking up just the right amount of cognitive, emotional, and psychic energy that one’s employment should take up. If such a balance is possible with anyone, it is possible with me.