Today’s a special day. It’s my official new hire date, and I’ll be an English adjunct for Zane State College in Zanesville, Ohio. I will be teaching right on campus in a classroom–my first time doing so since I lived in Japan–and it’ll be my teaching specialty, English Composition.

This all came together rather quickly, and thank goodness, too, because the other college I teach for–North Central State–didn’t have any classes available for me for the summer or this fall term, despite my pestering. I’m still considered part of the faculty and attended orientation, and will continue to participate with faculty things during the semester, but as far as fall teaching goes, I’ll be working with Zane State.

People have been watching out for me. My coworker at NCSC who teaches full time English forwarded my information on (with my permission) to the former dean of arts and sciences at NCSC, whom I worked with before I went to Japan. She’s dean at Zane State now. This little connection (reconnection?) helped me get on the radar for the job, and voila! I’m teaching again!

What’s going to be tricky about this is the commute. Fastest route is 1 hour, 30 minutes, but there is no major highway we could find that could get me there. Also, the class I teach is early in the morning, so it will be dark when I leave for work…and I’m a bit nervous about winter driving.

I’m also worried about work-life balance. I owe Oliver Heber Books three novels, and I also review pretty regularly for The Beat. Whenever I have a teaching job, teaching kind of overtakes everything, particularly when it comes to the act of grading. While I haven’t been given all of the details of the class I’ll be teaching yet, I did some snooping around on the course search site for Zane State and found the one I think I’m doing–and it has 24 students (!!!). Haven’t had that many in a long time. My courses at NCSC had significantly smaller enrollments for the online classes that I taught. I’m going to have to really figure out how to manage my time properly.

But the best news is that I’ve got confirmed, secure work from now until end of December! Things will be up in the air for spring term–I would like to work for both NCSC and Zane State if possible, but light loads with both–but with the way adjuncting works, nothing is ever certain or secure until the very last minute, it seems.

I’m looking forward to teaching at Zane State. I’m nervous but excited. It truly is going to be an adventure. Class starts next week (the 18th)–please wish me luck!