Hi, I’m Prof H., and I never finish anything.

I’ve started plenty of things; a fairly promising career in teaching the generic classes that the grown-up professors snub, an intermediate self-induced apprenticeship with select internet gossip columns, a seasonally dependent manic obsession with knitting and/or crocheting (I cannot touch yarn when it is warmer than 55 degrees outside), several hundred first paragraphs of the inevitable novel concerning my predictably insane family, etc.

None of these things have been carried out to their fullest potential, and that’s just how I roll.

Currently I’m embarking on a 2008 chock full of general education, college freshmen, a stale lesson plan that desperately needs fresh injections of my youthful creativity, and the relief that comes only from putting a halt to plans that felt too fast for their own britches. (That would be you, PhD program…. seriously. Find some pants that fit.)

I currently have 80 papers in my possession that should be graded by next Monday.

I turn 25 a week from tomorrow.

It’s taken a quarter of a century for me to get serious about this adult thing and start paying attention professionally, emotionally, mentally.

Year of the Blog is going to be about me finishing something.

Even if it’s just a bit, I hereby swear to update this blog with the progression of my growth as a professor, a wife, a proud dog owner, and an amateur seasonal knit-fiend.

Did I also mention I play WoW?

Yeah, let’s throw another log on the fire.

So welcome to my attempt to keep some order and honesty into my life in a totally anonymous way…

The first emotion I’d like to relate is the shock of extended procrastination and its ability to sink into every portion of my life. It’s always been around, like an old college buddy who took 6 years to finish a 2 year Associates Degree, bugging me to go hang out instead of writing my papers, cleaning my house, taking care of the things that allow me to function as an educated human being.

C’mon, it’ll say, that can wait. Why would you work hard right now when you can create a new blog? You know how I’ve been DYING to do that just so I can give up on it a few entries later.

No, I’ll say, let me just get to this one thing. I have to email these people by the end of the week or I might be out of a job over the summer and forced back into working…. *shudder*…. retail.

But a blog will INSPIRE you. You can play with what little you remember from your HTML and SSC lessons with Becca!

No, I’ll say, no really. I have to…

*looks at screen, newly set up blog looks back at her*

God damn it. I think I know who won this argument.

But the anthropomorphically animated Procrastination (he deserves a capital letter now, don’t you think?) isn’t really the shocking part of my current situation, it’s the fact that I never expected him to follow me from my old college life to my bright new shiny adult life. I don’t grade because I put it off, I don’t hand back assignments in an agile manner because I put off grading, I don’t keep on top of student progression because I can’t hand back assignments… it’s vicious, really. And I do it to myself, but making Procrastination into a detrimental buddy makes me feel a bit better about myself.

The worst is when I procrastinate by doing things that NEED to be done, things I’ve put off before… the other day I found myself re-organizing all our family finances and billing budget simply because I couldn’t face 20 definition arguments.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy grading, or teaching, or writing in general… it’s that I’m addicted to the straining pressure that mounts when a deadline approaches; the midnight hour is always my finest performance. So what happens when I am the one setting the clock?

That’s the question I’m asking myself through this little project. I challenge myself to reflect on what it’s like being the professor. The truth. Because I can’t handle any more smoke and mirrors. Academia is great for that.

I teach three days a week, and my dog is always with me. I’m lucky that my campus allows dogs, or at least tolerates them. Mine is small, friendly, neat, and unassuming. He’s more well behaved than several of my students. He helps to create a friendly atmosphere, and the students generally adore him.

Today we did the Revision Puzzle day, which involved my mini-lecture about how important revising your paper is in my eyes… and then giving them a short editorial piece I wrote about a fictional scientific discovery which, after printing out enough copies for each group, I promptly hacked up with a set of beige scissors and passed off as a class activity.

The reward for the winning team was an extra forgiven absence, something each and every student coveted (I’ll admit, that kind of hurt my feelings. Are they that itchy to leave my class?). The competition was fierce, and everyone acted like the paper arrangement was SO CHALLENGING until one team got the right combination; then the entire class acted like they knew the answers all along.

Half of me knows they’re just trying to make it through another Gen Ed course, that I can’t expect them all to fall in love with my concepts of rhetoric and revision.

But half of me wants to kick them in the collective fucking face.

I don’t demand that much from my students, just that they provide the VENEER of interest if not the genuine article… and they just don’t get it. Well, some don’t. Others are my sparkling gems and I’ll never let on that I cherish them until final grade time.

Oh, you’re so close to an A… why don’t I boost that for you, friend? There we are. It’s good to have friends in high places.

These things happen. Professors are not the professional, organized, robotic, detached, objective pod people I once thought they were. They can be kids in disguise, and that’s unnerving.

I think that’s all for now. More later, probably the next time Procrastination wants to hang out.

*sigh*