teaching anxiety

Toward the beginning of every semester since I began teaching in 1998, I've had teaching anxiety dreams. There are a few well-established themes:

• I can't find the classroom and I'm a half-hour late and all the students will have left by the time I get there.
• I forget the all-important stacks of handouts I'm supposed to give out on the first day: syllabi, listserv instructions, index cards, etc.
• The students are out of control, and I have to shout to be heard (this has its origins in a 2-month study skills course I taught to fifth graders many moons ago).

Strangely enough, I had none of these teaching anxiety dreams before teaching my first semester at ISU. One would think, wouldn't one, that coming to a completely new place where I don't, in fact, know where the classrooms are, might engender even more, not less, anxiety. I guess I had a newcomers' exemption last semester.

Classes don't begin for two more weeks at ISU, and the dreams have begun. Last night's dream had me completely unprepared to teach my grad course in authorship theory. No syllabus, no plans, no assignments, no nothing for the first day of a 3-hour class.

Guess this means I should get going on that syllabus....