By HD Silversmith
I've got it. Performance anxiety, that is.
Insert ::eyeroll:: here. God knows I did.
I'm being peer-reviewed tomorrow (my teaching, not my scholarly work).
And the thing is, well, how many times in my life has my teaching been evaluated by my peers, one way or another? Numerous. Oodles. Many. Too many to count. So it's not as if I'm not used to it, and it's not as if I don't know what I'm doing, though of course there's always room for improvement, bla-blah-blah.
But I'm still nervous. (Here's where you can insert your own ::eyeroll::)
Department politics being what they are, it could be uncomfortable for me tomorrow because the colleague who's set to observe me and write up the evaluation is someone with whom I am not always in sync on department matters. And right now departmental politics are at the forefront of people's agendas.
(Aren't they always? But really, I work for a state university system that's in genuine crisis because of massive budget cuts, and colleges', departments', and programs' very existence are being questioned. Which calls everything else into question. Including professional relationships.)
As for timing? Directly following my class there's a faculty meeting. About matters that have been hotly debate, at least in the recent past.
I'm just going to have to Suck It Up and bear it.
And choreograph tomorrow's class rather carefully so that I have a few bag of tricks from which to draw.
(That's what they call a mixed metaphor, folks.)
