My summer was not the relaxing break I hoped for a few months ago. Trips that didn’t go the way I planned, travel delays and cancellations for a variety of scary reasons, and work that took a turn for the insane. In general I felt off. About a week ago, I saw some of the fog start to lift, and then it plunged right back down for another round of crazy. I was feeling worn out, but still laughing, which is always a good sign.
Last weekend I took a hard look at my Fall schedule and saw the work mounting. I made some tough decisions about which pieces had to take a backseat for the time being. This afternoon I got an email from LIM College saying my social media class couldn’t be offered this Fall. I was disappointed to say the least, but nothing is as good as it seems or as bad as it seems. To their credit, LIM offered me the opportunity to teach several other classes this Fall that are more central to their curriculum (mine was very much an elective) but either the schedule didn’t fit with mine or the topic wasn’t my area of expertise.
The unfortunate aspects of not teaching at LIM College this Fall:
1.) I spent a lot of time and effort on the class building it from scratch
2.) I was looking forward to getting into college-level teaching much earlier in my career than I anticipated
3.) Missed income since I now won’t be paid this Fall for class or the work I’ve put into it to-date
And the upside:
1.) If the scheduling works out, mine and LIM’s, there is the possibility that I could teach the class at LIM in the Spring which would mean that the work I did would not go to waste
2.) I met Dudley Blossom, the Chair of the Marketing Department, at LIM. He is even more disappointed than I am that the class won’t be offered. His guidance as I built the curriculum was an incredible experience for me and I am confident that we will do some work together somewhere down the line
3.) I now have time for some of the projects that I put off in order to teach at LIM:
– Working on Innovation Station and a variety of other public education projects
– Spending more time on my yoga teaching through Compass Yoga
– Taking additional freelance writing assignments
– Working on my book idea that uses yoga principles as the basis for personal financial management
– Getting and training a dog
– Spending more time at the gym
4.) Now that I do have a curriculum created and I fully own it, I can shop it around to other schools who may be interested
5.) I learned a very valuable lesson – I will never again do freelance work for anyone without a contract
6.) I can take a couple of weekend trips I had originally decided to cancel this Fall
7.) My normal working hours won’t be divided between this class and my job, meaning that I won’t need to take up any of my personal free time to attend to work duties
8.) Fall is my favorite time of year, and honestly it’s always a better set of months for me than summer. Now I will get to enjoy more of it outside
9.) Having this class on my schedule made me re-sign my lease on my current apartment and not have to worry about moving; for that I’m very grateful
3 negatives, 9 positives. By sheer number, that’s about as much lemonade as I can make. The real bonus for me comes from knowing that all these types of things happen for a reason. There must be something else this Fall that really needs my attention, and now whatever that thing is, I’ll have more time for it. The unexpected can set us back a bit, but it brings with it a lot of excitement, too. I wonder what’s around the bend…
Christa Avampato 