Welcome To My Life

Note to CTM:  I'm not trying to be an MRL.  Really, I'm not.  Call my boss, she'll vouch for me.

Only one week in to my Hell Month, I'm already falling behind, and for that I apologize.  Many of you know that I'm an Associate Dean at a career college.  Sounds kinda like a cushy job, doesn't it?  In addition to being the Associate Dean, I'm also the primary medical instructor.  I love teaching and have no desire to give it up.  However...I would maybe like to teach a lot fewer classes than I am this month.  Our college runs an accelerated program, so the students get a full semester's worth of information in just four short weeks (eight class periods, four hours apiece, for a total of thirty-two hours.  The remaining eight hours are to be done on their own time.).  It's very much like an immersion program and I'm impressed by the students who can stick it out and graduate.

We also have rolling enrollments, which means that every four weeks, we have new students starting, so there is no point where all of the students are at the same level.  Most of the time it works out and we can find classes for everyone.  Ocassionally, though, we run into a snag where we've got students close to graduating who need classes and students who are starting need classes and none of those classes are the same.  We're one week into one of those periods; Thank God it's only four weeks long.

Since I have students who need classes to graduate on time and I have new students who need beginner classes and only have three other medical instructors, it means a whole heap of extra work for somebody.  Being the salaried one, it means that I often take on a lot more than I can chew.  *I'm so not whining, I do it to myself, and I love it.*  

Here's an example of my week:

• Monday: Teach four classes (ranging from 1 - 1 1/2 hours; all are directed studies), meet with the Education Department, get ready to pull from the corporate database for scheduling.
• Tuesday: Teach three classes (two four-hour classes and one one-hour directed study); meet with the Dean, set the class schedule for next mod; attend a two-hour Management meeting.
• Wednesday: Teach three classes (ranging from 1 - 1 1/2 hours; all directed studies); begin scheduling my 280-some medical students into the appropriate classes.
• Thursday: Teach three classes (see Tuesday); finish scheduling 280-some medical students into classes
• Friday:  Print and distribute 280-some schedules to the appropriate Academic Advisors; attend a Phlebotomy coalition meeting in Denver for the 9Health Fair coming up in April.  And, oh yeah, I forgot, working at the gun shop after my meeting in Denver.  I really must find some time to go shooting so I can remember why I torture myself doing data entry at the shop.

And I'm not the only one pulling this duty; everyone in my office works just as hard.  I work with a kick-ass team of women and I'm lucky to get to go to work with them every day; it's nice to know we're all in this together.

When I was whining talking to my sister about it last week, she said that it reminded her of Hell Week from G.I. Jane.  And it soooooo is.  Well, except for the hard-core exercise and Demi Moore's kick-ass body.  In that vein, I leave you with a brief clip of how my week feels, even if I'm not actually crawling under barbed wire in the mud while people are shooting over me.  It's really too bad I don't get to crawl through mud and do all of the physical activity, 'cause I'm afraid I'll never see the scale move if I can't find time to go to the gym. It just ain't happening for the next three weeks, not with working two 14.5 hour days and two 10.5 hour days (and that's just what I'm scheduled for, not what I'll actually work). Maybe being so busy, I won't have time to get bored and just munch though.