I’m instantly brought back to the song from the early 2000’s. Monica just had it down “just one of dem days, don’t take it personal”. Here’s the clip if you now have that rolling through your head.

The start of term has been a whirlwind. Fewer classes over all than other semesters, but wow. Have you experienced that while most students are excited to be there, that many (many!) also have zero ambition? I mean that from a place of true concern, because learning should be exciting and empowering. Literally, no one can take your learning from you – no one. It’s the one thing that you will forever have and it should be something you take pride in. But, that’s just seems to be so not the case.

I’m faced with students these days that don’t read (yea, really) and who want to be guided to everything. The goal shouldn’t be to just “get a grade” but to actually absorb content. No instructor is naive enough to think that students will just jump into content and interact only with the assignments that get them a grade. They then end up in a pickle because they haven’t interacted with any of the readings or the content which actually gives them the foundation to be successful on the assignments. Then they wonder why they have a tough time completing work or getting a good grade. What???

Then you layer onto that all the other facets of life (home, full time work, rest <–not sure what that is, but I hear it’s a thing!). Full time work as just a mess last week. Well, candidly, for the past 2 1/2 years, since I started in my role. There are a lot of words, but really the only ones that come to mind are just overwhelming. Being able to take time to just even organize all the things to do is difficult. This is so not going to be a way to complete the next double-digit number of years I have left at my full time role before I can retire.