I just completed my first-ever week as a full-time academic (no classes on Friday, though I am going to campus for a meeting) and let me tell you some things I’ve learned;
- There is no harder job. I have never — ever — worked as hard in a week as I did this past one, and I mean work from 6:30 a.m. all the way through to bedtime, either teaching, preparing to teach, or playing catch up on computer programs I don’t know but need to.
- Teachers will cheerfully sit in meetings for hours discussing educational theory. And these meetings do not involve cookies unless you bring them yourself.
- I never imagined how happy the arrival of a parking pass could make a sane adult.
- Students are smart and can teach you a few things — OK, a lot of things.
- My anxiety dreams are really, really vivid and entertaining. Last night’s involved a swarm of purple and yellow bugs — very pretty ones — that both stung and followed me from dream to dream.
- There is no substitute for enthusiasm, either on the part of student or teacher.
- Sushi out of a vending machine isn’t as bad as you might imagine.
- The statement “but you get the summers off!” is ignorant to the extreme. When I make it to the summer — if I make it to the summer — I am going to toast myself with a vat of Dr Pepper and a month-long nap.
Onward.
Dating Jesus 
It will get easier, I’m sure. Once you get into the groove.
But…sushi from a vending machine? That’s above and beyond the call if you ask me. (No cafeteria?)
Congratulations! It may get easier, but it’ll never be easy! I say that as the daughter of a retired teacher who observed her mom up late grading papers and creating lesson plans nearly every school-night! It was hard, but rewarding work for sure! Once you settle in, I hope you love it! Hang in there!