I’ll be teaching some middle English literature this week as well as some more beginner-level writing. Both these courses involve introducing students to something they either believe isn’t important or admit they know nothing about…and, in some rare cases, think they already know.

Fall is always my favorite time…back to school, back to the dorms, back to friends, and now, in this crazy new adult world, back to teaching and to the last Fall without a baby running through the leaves.

I was thinking today…why do people do well at work in an office environment? Now sure it has something to do with a sense of accomplishment and all of that stuff, but really, it’s because there’s someone there who would make you feel bad about yourself if you don’t do it–with a stare, an email, or just a tone of voice. In grad school, where advisors are rarely at hand for such things, you have to be the voice of shame for yourself.

So today, after calling myself a “whiny ingrate lazy bastard” a few times, I worked myself until a little writing frenzy and now…all of the uncertainty, fear, and misery of the past few weeks in terms of the diss has melted away.

“Shut up and write” who knew it could be so simple?

I’ve been looking at baby blogs online, mainly those written by friends, and it’s made me excited to have one.

Grad school is a great thing, but dangerous in that it can really make your priorities ridiculously counter-productive…every so often you have to call yourself a whiny bastard and be grateful…and then get back to the damn typing.

Which leaves me with one question: what to do now?

There are the obvious answers: prepare, have as much fun as possible, write as much as I can, support the wife, etc…

Yet, and this is the sad part, even though I know I will long for this time…with ample rest and a lot of free time…in just a few months, I am finding it very hard to take advantage of it, to change things drastically.

I’m beginning to think that maybe things don’t change that much when you have a kid…everything just gets more intense.

Still, the dissertation comes along slowly, though I struggle to keep that “write every day” mantra going…too many days go by energyless in front of the Word window while the computer tempts me with news, emails, and gchat. Yet, I’m happy with the work I’m doing and optimistic that in a less vacation feeling environment things may actually become easier.

An undergraduate advisor who I am very close to once told me that the key to a successful life, or a sign of one, is that every few years you look back and can’t believe how lucky you’ve been. Even today, as I did dishes, I realized how when I moved in to my place I was unmarried, only had a few dishes and a few pieces of cheap furniture and now, just a few years later, everything has become bigger, more enhanced, more important, and way more exciting.

I have huge goals for this fall…finish these two chapters, write some conference papers for some upcoming exciting conference panels, and send out my first article.

Then, in the Spring Semester, I’ll be moving bookshelves to make room for a crib…I can’t think of a better symbol for this great new phase, this perfect gift.

I also got to see the baby move. Which made it all real and yet surprisingly not scary. This baby is going to need me to be stable, to be reliable, and to be his/her everything. My wife and I are pretty good at taking on large tasks like this, and I’ve never been one to shy away from tackling something a little harder/larger than I’m used to, but this will be the biggest of the biggest in terms of that. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited though. Seeing babies out in restaurants, stores, and at parties makes me excited to be part of a new world…a new body of emotional, intellectual, and physical obligations and knowledge.

This new challenge has translated slowly into an increased momentum in terms of the dissertation. I had an encouraging meeting back before all this traveling started that has made my research a bit more easygoing. Now I’m hoping to tie up a few loose ends and get back to typing. As it’s already practically mid-August it’s time to really get on this!

Now, of course, is the time to get stuff done! And yet it’s so easy to not…in the absence of strict deadlines and immediate consequences, putting everything in the world off is all too easy.

But now it’s time to find some of that old energy, kick myself in the ass, and get it done…write some more pages, send some letters, read some more books, and be the best husband and expectant father one can be!

This weekend was a beautiful thing, though. Energizing and delighting. And energizing is just what I need! So much of this business is about ploughing through the unpleasant, knowing that each push gets you closer. I think I might be getting closer all the time.

Nothing will make you more grateful to be able to teach at the college level than teaching high school students. I always find it amusing when people imagine they’ll just “go into teaching” at the high school level. College teaching is about competence and confidence, but really…we have it pretty easy. Our students only see us twice or at most three times a week for an hour or so and if they just sit there blankly staring and doing nothing it’s their own problem…you dock them a few points off their participation grade and focus mainly on the students who do want to participate.

Not so in secondary ed. Whereas in college the most disruptive thing that could happen is a cellphone rings or someone texts under their desk, the secondary ed. classroom can devolve into a war zone with even a few minutes of neglect. Though it certainly has its rewarding moments, and the Summer is a particularly difficult time to make students learn in a classroom setting, it can feel like being a warden in a prison cafeteria pretty fast.

That being said, I really respect people who are able to do this well on a full-time basis…especially because it is so easy to do it poorly. I have a friend who is a tried and true high school teacher about to get back in the driving seat of secondary ed this upcoming Fall, so I’ll be able to keep a mild interest in secondary ed. active while I go back to my natural habitat of the college classroom.

What has sadly NOT felt like my natural habitat is microsoft word, the guardian of my always-almost-nearly-done dissertation chapter that I really must get to and get to fast. I’ve compiled notes, I’ve read, I’ve marked, I’ve reproduced (here I’m talking about archival materials, but as you all know there’s been more reproduction going on!), and now it’s just time to finish the damn thing!

I think I’ve gradually reached this point over the last 14 months during which comps, the end of coursework, and a lot of research, drafting, and even some travel have forced me out of the somewhat protected (and in some related ways, frustrating), land of possibility waiting-to-be-set-free world of coursework into the wild blue yonder of dissertating.

Tonight was a night where being a dissertator felt like a blessing, when one not only discovers something endlessly fascinating but realizes that the tools to appreciate and analyze it are already at hand.

I think I’ve taken a similar approach in preparing for Fatherhood. To speak the language, read the books, live mentally in that world before eventually realizing that in a few months I will be surrounded by it. There are no archives in parenting, only fieldwork!

Since I was a kid, I was also fascinated by different methods of writing…by dipping pens, fountain pens, and typewriters…

Though a computer may be endlessly convenient, it only pretends to be free from the physical exertion that writing has always included. Carpal tunnel aside, computers seem to teem with temptation, blogging related and otherwise.

Yet to imagine, while writing, that one has to carve words into stone may break all kinds of bad writing habits…allowing us to take it slow, form words carefully, and enjoy the artistry of the task.

This is probably all wishful thinking, but if a writing project, like a child, develops over many months…why not cherish each formation and each anxiety as they come along…waiting for a milestone of a fingernail or to reach the thirtieth page?

Each day begins with that kind of alarm clock crisis…the desire to snooze pushing one day’s beginning right to the brink of late, other days, like today, I bounce up and even have time for coffee and an omelet.

When this Summer job is over, as it will be soon, I’ll look forward to trying to keep these mornings open as a time to work and reflect…soon a morning up early won’t be virtuous, it’ll be required!

Some writing done yesterday, as well as a meeting with a younger colleague, both energizing. Today: the same goals. Some writing, a meeting with a friend, and trying to stay on that winding road to completion.

In these early days, the first trimester of the pregnancy, the first chapter of the dissertation, both endeavors are full of potential energy, potential offerings for the rest of my life. Knowing that I will, hopefully, be a father soon is obviously the more important, the more visceral…it causes waves of delight, anxiety, and hope. It’s amazing how news like this, which can come as a deep shock, can tie itself so closely to your heart…to the point where every act becomes related to it. Superstitions abound!

The dissertation, too, has some of this energy. Almost done with the first chapter I see a little seed into what I hope will be the rest of my life. I can’t think of a nicer way to live these years…so surrounded by seeds, by growth, and by potential. A seed, after all, is all about the mingling of potential with anxiety…in both cases I’m learning more and more about how waiting works…