course intentions

After class today, I was thinking about course intentions and how they differ from goals (which is usually the term I use when writing syllabi).  It's interesting to me how a single word change made me pay much more attention to this part of the syllabus.  So, after mulling over this for a while, I'd like to put forth some intentions for myself, which are similar to the course intentions but a bit more specific to me:

• practice body-based meditations to calm and focus the attention, gain access to inquiry and insight, and calm the nerves
• develop and practice a daily writing habit by committing 15-120 minutes of writing each weekday and at least one weekend day and reporting on the process on this blog
• complete the course readings and report on them
• further practice Boice's rules for comfortable and fluent writing by working on two long-term writing projects simultaneously, in order to develop a practice that allows me to focus attention on more than one project at a time (when necessary)
• share my observations and insights on the blog and in class

In general, I'm a fairly nervous person who stresses about a lot of things, and this is something I have been working to change over the last couple years.  I've done meditation, yoga, swimming, biking, etc., and these help, but I tend to do them for two weeks or so and then forget and try something new months later.  I'd really like to develop a long-term practice in order to reduce stress, and I think this class can certainly help with this.  The meditation today made me feel wonderful :)

I also have quite a busy summer, which means a lot of balancing. I'm teaching English 2010: Intermediate Composition for the first time and developing it as I go; I'm co-developing an online version of Women's and Gender Studies 1120 with 2 colleagues, and we need to have the class mostly up and running by the end of July; I want to start working more on my Comprehensive Exams so that I can stay on track and have a draft in December.  There are other little things here and there like conference proposals and such, but these three things are the major projects for me this summer.  So, like I said in my intentions above, I'd like to develop a writing practice that allows me to work on more than one large project at a time.  The reality of my career is that there will always be more than one project; what better time than now to learn balance!