Time flies

It's hard to believe, but I'm already done teaching my five-week Introduction to Journalism class, or at least I will be done tomorrow after the final exam. A month ago, I had only just begun. That's the beauty of summer classes -- they're intense while they last, but they are over before you know it.

It's been a good class. My summer students are usually my best ones. This class was no exception. They kept me on my toes with good questions and a desire to learn.

I have two weeks now before the fall semester begins. I'll be teaching another five-week class -- the Metro State journalism department offers three of its core courses in five-week increments each semester -- and this one is even more intense. It's Beginning Reporting, a class where students do an assignment a day. Practice, practice, practice -- it's the only way to really learn how to report and write like my students' future jobs will require. But that daily practice means I'll have 15 assignments a day to grade. Ugh. Grading is the part of teaching I dislike the most. (And I don't have teaching assistants to do my grading for me . . . I wish I did.)

Meanwhile, I have a few reporting assignments of my own to juggle as I prepare for the fall and finish up the grading from the summer class. Teaching takes up a lot of my time, and between my two jobs (writing and teaching), I talk more about teaching and spend more time thinking about it than writing. (The teaching is still somewhat new, whereas the writing is like second nature, I guess.) Sometimes it's hard to switch my focus and remember I'm still a journalist, too, not only a journalism teacher.