Every Spring, I run out of energy; in 12 years of teaching I have never found a way not to run on fumes by the end of the year when teaching 9 classes in three quarters. I am teaching an overload this quarter, including an upper-division Creative Nonfiction Workshop I’ve never taught before, and I have also been staying up late to write. Often, it is not clear to me if all of it is worth it. But last week I found out that the Composition program here at the UO is making TEACHER the central text for their fall conference, and purchasing a copy for all 92 faculty, and this week the news came in I’ve been promoted in rank, entailing a modest raise, and yesterday Onbeing.org agreed to pay me handsomely to publish part of my memoir-in-progress in their series on Men and Vulnerability. Maybe the labor is worthwhile after all.

(posted from Facebook)

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