Sounds strange, but it’s true. Or at least by tomorrow morning I will be!
I went along to the first lecture of the module and got my first look at the second year undergraduates I will be teaching. They seemed a nice bunch. They did all the same things like what I used to do when I was a second year, i.e. not sit in the front two rows of the lecture theatre and at least pretend to take notes of what the lecturer is saying. It seems strange to think that a mere five years ago I was taking this module, and now I’ll be teaching it. But, luckily for me, the EU has changed so much in that time that it’s like taking a completely different module.
Now, with news of the Irish referendum approving the Treaty of Lisbon on Friday, I know what I’m supposed to be teaching. You can always rely on the EU to leave it until the last minute before letting us people, who have to teach the young people of the world how the EU works, know until the last minute quite what treaty is supposed to be in force!
Anyway with that headache just about resolved there remains the main issue… How am I going to handle this? What if they ask me really awkward questions? What if I don’t know the answers? What if they undermine my authority? What if they destroy what confidence I have in a matter of seconds? The best I can do is just to do my best. If I don’t know an answer, I’ll look it up and get back to them. Hopefully they’ll be able to accept that and I’ll be able to give them the benefit of my many years of experience of studying and living in the EU.
So once I get over that surreal experience of walking into the room and occupying that teacher’s chair, I’ll have to get to know my group and work through what I have planned (which isn’t as well planned as I would like at this stage, so may require more work later tonight). An hour will soon fly by and once the first group is done, the next two tomorrow will be easier to deal with. But I will definitely have earned a pint at the end of the day and some film night pizza!
Right, I shall report back how I get on later in the week. Together with an update on how my PhD is going in general since I’ve been back for the new term.