Welcome to my blog!

For years I have considered doing a blog, but never really knew what I would write about. My ever-exciting life as a college teacher? My TV obsessions? My complaints about Iowa's cold and Florida's insane humidity? Well, now I have my chance: as of January 27th, 2010, I will be living in London as the Faculty Director of the Eckerd College London Study Centre (that's right folks, we're moving on to the sophisticated version of 'center' here) for the entire Spring Semester. As you can see from my blog description, my job this term is some sort of conglomeration between a tour guide, house manager, accountant, historian, doctor, mother-figure (I prefer to think of myself as more the 'older sister' type), psychiatrist, RA, travel agent, disciplinarian, and, oh yeah, a teacher. Here's a bit of an overview 'by the numbers', as they say:

Zero: Number of other adults or faculty that live with me and the students. Oy.

1: The number of housekeepers/cooks that come to the house everyday and will save my sanity (and provide a wealth of knowledge as to how I do all this stuff).

2: Number of courses I will teach while I'm there (namely, 'The British Experience'--which I consider to be better referenced as "Exploring London", and 'British Media and Pop Culture', which clearly will be delightful and full of investigations into the Royals, Monty Python, and Posh & Becks, ).

2: Number of week-long breaks where the students and I can travel (note: students can travel on weekends, but I cannot...save for the two special breaks!)

3: Number of rooms I have to myself (my own bedroom, bathroom, and mini office)

4: Number of other professors from London that will come to the house and offer my students other types of courses (Art History, Politics, Theatre--see, the 're' again--and Literature)

4: Number of men living in the house for the semester.

14: Number of female students living in the house for the semester (I can't decide who to feel more sorry for--the girls or the guys?).

15: Approximate number of weeks I will living in this pumped-up version of The Real World: London.

So, as you can see, I am insane for taking this on...

...or extraordinarily lucky, I'm not sure which. :) Actually, I am pretty excited about it all and try not to worry about some of the random horror stories told to me by other faculty who have done this before (I'll never forget my Division Chair who told me he recruited one of his best/sweetest/smartest students to spend the semester in London and told me, (and I quote), "She made my life a living hell") and hope for the best. I thought it would be fun (or perhaps I'm just narcissistic) for anyone interested to follow along with me in my experience abroad. While I've done a fair share of European and domestic travel, I have never actually lived abroad for any period of time (and certainly not with a house chock full of 18 to 22 year-olds that are kind of my responsibility), I'm excited to see what happens.

And I hope you are too!

P.S. Soooo....I struggled with a title for this blog ("Professor Pitcher in London" was just so lame-o) and recalled the delightful little automated announcement (delivered in a lovely British accent, of course) that runs every time you exit the London Underground train: "Mind the Gap". Which is saying, in a charming British way, that you better not be stupid and fall in that space between the train and the platform, you dumb non-urbanite or American tourist. :)