Balancing Act

As some of you already know, these last couple weeks have been incredibly high stress weeks for me.

Part of this is because I went very quickly from a life of leisure (I did have things to do, but I also had a lot more free time than I am generally used to, and I enjoyed it) to one of the busiest schedules I have had in my quarter decade of schooling. But another reason for the high stress level of the last couple weeks is quite simply that I horribly misjudged my fall semester schedule. I knew it would be busy, but I had no idea it would be this bad. In the interest of evening out my financial situation, gaining some experience that I wanted to have, and adding structure to my schedule (something I really struggled with last year), I agreed to teach two classes at the community college instead of one. So now my semester responsibilities include the following:

• Teach and plan a MW evening section of Mathematics for Elementary Teachers I, a class I have taught before (this means I have planning time, but less of it).
  
  
• Teach and plan a TTh morning section of Mathematics for Elementary Teachers II, a class I have never taught before. I had forgotten how much work it is to teach a class the first time. And because I care a lot about teaching, I put an awful lot of thought and effort into planning.
  
  
• Work as a teaching assistant for two sections of a Mathematics for Elementary Teachers class at U of M (MW afternoon). Fortunately there is no grading this semester because there are no formal assignments.
  
  
• Work on my dissertation. This, of course, is huge. It needs to get done. I meet with my advisor every week and set concrete goals so that I can keep the feeling of urgency that will get me to do it amidst all these other pressing duties.
  
  
• Take care of a dog. I am responsible for his physical and emotional well-being. Feeding him and letting him out to do his business takes minutes. But walking (or running) him every day, petting him, providing mental stimulation by teaching him tricks (or trying), takes more time than you might think.
  
  
• Take care of myself and my living space - grocery shopping and cooking meals (which is especially important because I don't have the money to eat out every day), cleaning my room, getting enough sleep, running, doing laundry, changing light bulbs when they burn out. These also all take significant portions of my time.

Maybe you're looking at that list and wondering what the big deal is - after all, I am not taking any classes. Trust me, though. It's busy. Teaching is practically a full-time job. Working on my dissertation can (and probably should) be practically a full-time job.

I had a couple days this week when I thought I would burn out before the month, but I'm feeling better now that it's Friday. As soon as I post this I have to get to work and work hard, but it's nice to have a couple days stretching out ahead of me with no immediate obligations.

And this morning while I was running, I was thinking about the week and how I handle stress, and I came to the conclusion that I handle it better than I give myself credit for. I do sometimes waste time and get myself in trouble, but when the pressure's on I start to step up the productivity, and I find that I make balancing my life a priority. I am more likely to get enough sleep if I am busy and stressed than if I am in vacation mode, mostly because I know that if I don't get my eight hours or close to it I will probably hate my life. I enjoy my runs more because they are a much-needed diversion from my routine instead of just another fun thing I'm doing. I try very hard to cram as much into the day as possible (even if it's a long day) so that in the evenings I can relax a little - read a book, catch up with my roommate, talk on the phone, go to Grad Student Night Out - because having time with people or by myself helps me to feel better about life in general.

I'm not perfect at putting my life into balance when things get busy. Last Saturday I put in a marathon lesson-planning day and felt like I was left without a weekend and had no breathing time before starting back up again. And I spent a lot of time this past week feeling like my life was in shambles as I ran from place to place and chore to chore and panicked because I wasn't finding time in between to work on my dissertation. But in a way, I think having busy times like this is really good for me because it forces me to prioritize and balance everything, and helps me realize that small changes go a long way, that I can find some semblance of balance between school and work and church and sleep and exercise and friends and family, no matter how overwhelming it may seem when I actually step back to think about it.

And now I'm off to a marathon lesson-planning Friday (instead of Saturday) so that this week I actually can have a weekend and mentally prepare myself to start all over again on Monday.