skippin' school

There are a couple of campus events going on today and tomorrow that are extremely relevant to one of my classes, and which I have decided to require the students in that class to attend, so in exchange for the extra demands on their time, I cancelled class today.

So, whee! I get a morning off! Woo hoo! (And oh yes, I totally feel like I'm getting away with something nefarious.)

I think I'm still getting used to the fact that I can cancel classes. In grad school, we were never allowed to cancel freshman comp, ever, unless we were holding conferences with students. You got one of the other grad students to sub, and of course there were always plenty of people who could sub, unlike here, where there are a grand total of seven full-time faculty in the department.

I'm still getting used to a lot of things, actually. I went to see a movie with one of my colleagues -- an older man who DOES look classically professorial, whereas I could easily pass for an undergrad -- a few weeks into the semester, and he said something about how perhaps he should have invited one particular student to join us, but she might not want to go to a movie with two professors anyway -- and I remember thinking, "There's another professor here? Where?" and then, "Oh. Right. Me."

And, of course, part of me doesn't want to get too comfortable in my new role as yet, because who knows whether I'll still have a job here, or anywhere, after this year? I guess that's another reason why taking the morning off feels slightly edgy and daring -- because I'm in the middle of what is essentially a semester-long interview, and maybe I shouldn't be doing this sort of thing. But then again, the events we're attending instead do have a clear educational purpose, and besides, the students will probably regard the change of pace as a treat and may even say nice things about it on the evals, so it's just as likely to work for me as against me.

So I'm thinking about a lot of things, but mostly: Yay! Time off!