I’m still working on planning for the college class I’m teaching in a few weeks. I need to have my basic syllabus done within the next week or two, but I don’t really plan that way, so I’m going week by week and outlining the entire lesson. It’s a lot of work, but I’m feeling a lot better than I was last week. I was previously trying to reverse engineer the previous professor’s syllabus while bringing in some of my own resources, but I gave myself permission to do my own thing and only consult her work when I felt I needed something more for a lesson or a text. I’m moving much faster and things feel easier now, so it’s just a matter of doing the work.
I’m teaching (adjunct lecturing) a college class in the fall for the first time. I’m starting to put together my syllabus and lesson plans. I have a lot of resources from the previous professor (who is a friend), but I’m also trying to do my own thing. It’s a lot of work and I’m very stressed about it.
I know it’s only just August, but it somehow feels like the summer is already over. It’s the Sunday scaries month of the summer for me, which is ridiculous because who else gets two months off from their job every year? (Aside from, you know, people in civilized countries that get actual vacation days.)
Joe and I visited some of his family with a lake house this week where my farmer’s tan became more and more pronounced. I also “worked” two days this week: I had committee meetings on Thursday and then a joint meeting to coordinate middle school/high school/college GSAs in my area. I also went to a concert (more about that in the music section) with a friend who moved away a year ago and who I missed a lot!
Once upon a time ago (and a time, and a time), I had a podcast. I miss podcasting dearly and think about going back often — otherwise, what am I to do with a partial, flawed understanding of normalizing to a target loudness and editing around the disgusting noises my mouth makes? Well, share it with others, of course.1
In case it was not clear, I am not a professional. I am a blockhead who likes to tinker and who has watched a lot of YouTube videos. These are the FX chains I use for my voice, which may or may not be helpful to other people who do not have my voice. This is also not an exhaustive audio guide or overview of how I edit my audio. Maybe another time.
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring released in 2001 when I was seven years old. At the time, my media diet consisted mostly of The Powerpuff Girls and obsessively reading and re-reading the first four Harry Potter books.1 I would like to say that my father was thoughtful and felt that I would have enjoyed another fantasy series with wizards and magic but knew that a three-plus-hour theater experience was tall ask for a seven year old. Unfortunately, I know him, and I think it more likely that he is cheap and thought the movie looked cool, so when Fellowship released on home media, we trucked to the neighborhood knock-off and rented it on VHS. That night, I crowded with my two older siblings around a (by today’s standards) laughably small tube TV. We tucked in with no expectations or understanding of what the movie would be about.