Break-time's Over

So far today I have:

1. Taught a class.
2. Printed out stuff related to the book proposal, ordered stuff via interlibrary loan for the polishing of the sample chapter, printed out a couple of journal articles related to the sample chapter.
3. Forgot to "apply" for my reassigned time for spring. Must put that on my to-do list for tomorrow.
4. Scheduled two advising appointments with students; rescheduled a meeting related to my quasi-admin. position.
5. Worked out.
6. Officially scheduled lunch with my department chair.

#6 is the thing I really want to talk about in this post. I have yet to tell my chair that I'm going on the market, and that's the main reason why I asked him to meet. I had intended to tell him at the end of the summer - after I told Very Supportive Colleague, who is writing me a letter. The problem was, the end of the summer kind of ended before I got around to making my Grand Confession. A lot was going on. My department chair was dealing with some health stuff, the university appropriated some money that the department had been depending on, the university approved two t-t searches, I was getting acclimated to the quasi-admin position, there have been some new administrative things that I along with the entire department have had to deal with.... So yes, rather than force the issue about going on the market when all of that was happening, I allowed myself to put it off. Now, this isn't a big deal in some respects, in that I've got a letter from a VIP in the department. And it's entirely possible that the VIP told my chair about my intentions. But as I got stuff ready to send out, I realized that it was really important for me to tell my chair about what I'm up to.

My relationship with my chair is a really good one. He has been nothing but supportive of me, and I really do trust him to understand my situation when I explain it to him. The reason I'm a little anxious is because I don't want him to be upset by what I'm doing. I don't want him to fear that I "hate" my job or something. Because I don't. But so yes. I'm going to be having lunch with my chair. And while I'm sure it will be fine, I'm also kind of nervous.

[Aside: we're going to the same place for lunch that I went to with my other colleague in the summer, and this gives me a weird sense of deja vu like when I was in grad school and went on two consecutive first dates at the same restaurant. Maybe some locations just inspire certain kinds of meetings. Jae's in Boston? Apparently the place to go on a first date. Restaurant Here? Apparently the place to tell senior colleagues that you're looking for another job. Who knew?]

But so now, I need to turn off the computer and work for two hours on stuff for my book proposal. My aim is to send the thing out by Oct. 31, so I've got some pretty substantial work to accomplish between now and then. In other news, a panel that I proposed for a conference in the summer was officially accepted, so now I need to begin doing some things related to the paper that I will present in earnest (like actually reading one of the novels I claim that I will discuss) as well as to ask a few different sources for some money to go. And then I've got to come up with an abstract for another conference, but that will be related to something I'm teaching in the next couple of weeks, so that's kind of on the back-burner at the moment.

So that's the research stuff going on.

And then with teaching, we're moving into the modernist period in the Survey and we're finishing up with a Novel Many of My Students Do Not Like in my upper division class tomorrow. In my writing class, we're edging ever closer to their second formal paper.

In other words, I'm wicked-busy. But I'm feeling pretty energized about it all after the four days off, so maybe fall break has done its job?