The English Specialist*

Well, I survived my first specialist course! It was an obscene amount of work and was at times all-consuming, but I really learned a lot and enjoyed the experience overall. I was a little burnt out by the time the course ended in December, and was thrilled to learn that I had a glorious seven week break before course #2 began.

I vegged, I watched all the TV I had missed though the fall (Manhunt: Unibomber was amazing, and Scott and Bailey was so good too!), I spent time with my family and let myself relax a bit.

However, all good things must come to and end… so today I’m back at it! My English Specialist course began this week, and I had my fingers crossed that it would be the “lighter” of the two courses I enrolled in. I have much more teaching experience in this area, so I hoped the work load wouldn’t seem as daunting for me.

To survive the History course I had to have a calendar with daily tasks to keep myself from getting behind. There was SO MUCH WORK that I really couldn’t even take a day or two off without having readings or discussion posts piling up. The calendars kept me organized (and sane), so I decided it would probably be best to do the same thing with this course.

I sat myself down to get organized this afternoon, and was SO pleasantly surprised to see that the workload appears lighter in this course. I have much more time to complete readings and tasks, and there are far fewer of them in each module.

Hallelujah!

I know it will still get crazy by the end, but this is a very happy start. I may actually get to have some semblance of a life while taking this course! I am SO SO happy that I took the History course first!!