I have some really exciting news—I’m going to be taking over two classes at Sierra Nevada College for the semester! SNC is this great little campus in Incline Village, and I’ll be teaching out of the library, which is a beautiful newer building. I got the initial email just before Christmas, and I wasn’t even sure if it was definitely going to happen until very recently. But I met with HR on Monday, as well as the woman whose classes I’m taking over. She’s been teaching the classes—a journalism course and an editing course—for the past five years, so she’s got fairly in-depth syllabi, tests, worksheets. Still, I have to read up on all the assignments, see if there’s anything I want to change, plan lessons—it’s a lot of work and it’s been very little time to prepare.
My classes are Monday/Wednesday, so my first class will be this coming Wednesday. Then I’m out of town that second week (hubby’s got a conference in Orlando so we’re taking the girls to Disney!). The woman I’m taking over for can cover those classes, though I feel bad that I won’t meet my once-a-week editing class until the second week of school. Still, not much I can do as the trip’s been planned since long before I knew about the job.
Anyway, I’m very excited about the opportunity! It’s just for the one semester, but I’ve always wanted to get into teaching at some point in my life, and this seems like the ideal introduction. So whether it leads to anything or not, I’m just really excited to try my hand at it—I have a feeling I’ll be learning as much as the students. And in case you were wondering about the cupcake up top, it’s my celebration sweet!
Alison O. Bender 