FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL AS A PROFESSOR! @ the university of miami 🌴

Good morning! Welcome to the first day of school vlog. It feels surreal. My name is Sarah. I am a professor that's never gonna get old at the University of Miami and welcome to my channel. So today is my first day teaching. It is Tuesday. Technically the first day was yesterday, but since I wasn't teaching I didn't go to campus and was able to avoid all of like the real first day of school like chaos and stuff like that, but I'm going to campus today. My class starts at 2 p.m. and it's currently 10 a.m. I just got out of the shower. I let myself sleep in. I have a nice slow morning. Typically once the semester starts I plan on going in much earlier than I will be going today, so I could go in my office, do research, do work, and stuff like that, but since it's the first week of school we're really focusing on teaching this week and I'm gonna take my time getting ready. Gotta blow dry my hair, doing a little gua sha on my face, gonna do some makeup, have a cute little dress picked out, all the fun little first year school things. It's been a minute since I have taught I feel like because I was on fellowship, then I was on a graduate student assistantship in the Writing Center, and then I was on fellowship before that, and then I taught. So it's been a minute but I'm really excited. Okay hair is done. It's gonna fall clipped back. I said in my last vlog that I ordered a mirror and a new chair and they both came so that's exciting. Here is the mirror. It has three settings so bright, off, bright, sort of like a little more orangey tone, but like really bright. Zach also mailed me a little care package and he included this picture of us that he even like went to home goods and put in a frame which is so sweet, and he sent the cutest card and some mini M&Ms which are one of my favorite candies. So I'm really gonna try and wear SPF every day now that I'm living in Miami. I don't love wearing SPF under makeup but you gotta do what you gotta do to protect your skin. Okay I'll let that sit for a second and then I think we're going full glam today because it's the first day. Makeup done. Now I'm going to prep some snacks for me to bring to campus and then get dressed and we will be on our way because what I'm most nervous about is parking and I need to leave myself plenty of time. So I bought this lunchbox. If you ask Megan she'll tell you I was eyeing it for like the whole last semester of grad school but I was like no I don't need a lunchbox. So I bought it now. I just think it's like the cutest color pink and it matches my Stanley perfectly even though it's Hydroflask brand not Stanley brand. She was pricey for sure. It was $40 for a lunchbox but I got it from Target and I had a 20% off discount code for being a teacher. So now I gotta fill it up with some stuff. A little Welch's fruit snack which I like really messed up the top of that. I'm just not used to having these long nails. I did these press ones yesterday and they're so fun but we'll see how long they last before I have to file them down. Then one of these little bars and I asked my mama if she had crackers at home when we were grocery shopping yesterday and she said yes but I didn't realize they were already pre-packaged. She's the best. I can't decide if I want to do mozzarella or cheddar. They're honestly like one of each. The cats are going crazy. So that's the pack of crackers. I might do one of each honestly. And then I'm gonna bring a little hummus cup. Cut up some carrots quickly for the hummus. And then last but not least like I have to do that with these nails. Okay here is the fit. An oldie but a goodie. I wore this on the first day of school three years ago and I tried it on last night to make sure it still fit and it does but I realized I was gonna be home alone and I was gonna have no way to zip it up myself so my mom gave me the genius idea of hooking a necklace to the back of it and then like pulling the necklace over and pulling it up. Worked perfectly but I couldn't unclasp the necklace especially with these nails so I just tucked it into the back of the dress and we're going with comfy shoes. When I wore this before I wore heels but we're smarter now. We are wiser. We're a professor not a grad student. Okay home now. I clipped my hair up on the car ride home because it was hot. Somehow it's like a rainy day and it's still hot. I'm glad I had an extra umbrella in my office that they actually gave me. It says department of writing studies on it. I forgot I had to walk to class because I didn't bring one. It was raining. Class went so well. I'm so happy. All the students are so sweet and just like so willing to like engage with everything. So I can't remember if I told the vlog or not but what I did for the icebreaker is I had them do like the viral tiktok trend where people like remix the line to his song where he says that's my baby she's iconic iphone case lip gloss on it then you like rephrase the last two lines so that's my baby she's iconic blank blank and it rhymes with iconic and I had them like do make like a little rhyme for their partner. I just had them like turn to the person next to them and everyone was such a good sport about it. It was fun. It set the tone I think for the semester of it being like we're gonna think we're gonna get a little out of our comfort zones. We're gonna have fun. We're gonna experiment. We went over the syllabus and yeah perfect attendance. So it was just a really good first day of class and I met some new faculty members when I went to my office for the first time. People stopped by well one person stopped by just to say hi and introduce themselves so that was really sweet as well. So I'm feeling really good. It was a really great first day. I was really happy with my shoe choice. 10 hour heels. It's a casual campus so people were like in athleisure all the students and girls like weren't carrying book bags. Everyone was carrying like a big purse which was really really interesting. It's not how it was at IU or at UF. So anyway excellent first day. It took an hour to get home but I'm learning like that's just that's just what it means to live in Miami. It was a lot better of a commute than it was last week after orientation though because I was just like 30 minutes earlier to leave in rush hour between like 3 30 and 4. Like if you leave at 3 30 versus if you leave at 4 you're gonna like be so much luckier. So that was good because I was able to like head out at around 3 30 and I listened to a podcast and then I also talked to Zach on the phone on the way home. So that made it a lot better. Feeling good. Can't wait to take my makeup off, change and then my mom made a cake for the first day of school. That was like a tradition growing up. So very sweet that she did it for me again. Here's the cake my mom made for my first day of school and my dad said he's gonna sing a song. You ready? Happy first day of school. Oh nice! Happy first day of school. Happy first day of school. Yay! Okay I'm gonna get in bed now. It's a little after 9 p.m. It feels honestly just like really weird to not have like a dissertation to work on. I'm like not mad about it and I know obviously the primary task of a tenure-track hire especially at like an R1 school like UM is research and I'm going to like meet with my department chair and like talk about what that looks like and all that good stuff but like for now it's sort of just like settling in and all I've had to focus on is the one class I'm teaching and then the dissertation writing group which doesn't start until next week which I sent one email for today and I'm just like what am I supposed to be doing right now? Like I feel like it feels weird. I had like nothing to do for like all of July and it was amazing but I'm like okay what now? Like give me something to do. Give me something to write. So I'm like I feel ready. I'm like ready to rock, ready to go. I'm also just like eagerly anticipating that meeting with my department chair slash like mentor where I will learn what some reasonable expectations are for the first semester of research but for now I'm just like I'm getting a lot of sleep. I'm settling in very easily because I moved back in with my parents temporarily. My mom cooks me dinner every night. She made me a cake. My dad sang me happy first day of school. I watch game show network with them and then I just go to bed and it's weird because I'm like why do things feel so easy right now but it's literally the first day of school so my time will come. Anyway I am going to do my nightly phone call to Zach to say goodnight to check in and I'm gonna watch some tv on my projector. I don't really like to read before bed but you guys I've been in the biggest reading slump. I just like have not been liking anything. I just haven't been wanting to pick up my ipad and read and I'm like maybe it's reading on the ipad maybe I need to get like a physical book. I just nothing has sounded good. I am currently reading My Friends by Friedrich Bachman which I know objectively is like a really good book but I'm like 50 pages in and I'm like boring and I know that it's me. The book is not boring it's just me so I don't know what's going on. So I've just been a tv gal lately. I'm finishing up Sirens which I started way back in Bloomington with Megan and we only watched the first two episodes so I think I have like one episode left. It's only a five episode limited series. Anyway I made a to-do list of things to do for tomorrow mostly for my class. A couple emails I and we'll keep it rolling tomorrow. Good morning happy Wednesday drinking my coffee. So I have some things on my to-do list mostly for the class that I'm teaching. I need to make an assignment sheet for the first major assignment because I plan to go over the assignment sheet in class tomorrow. It's like a multi-literacy narrative. I need to like make the powerpoint for tomorrow. I need to just like solidify some other things like that. That shouldn't take more than like an hour or two at most though. And another thing that I'm wanting to do is find new vloggers. So I really haven't watched many vlogs on YouTube in the past few months. I don't want to say I felt like burnt out because of the dissertation which is about vlogs but I don't know I just wasn't like reaching for them. And the vloggers that I would always watch their vlogs were like Brooke Michio and Danielle Carolyn from Girls on the Go but I don't know if it's because like they're full-time influencers and their content like isn't relatable that I'm just like eh have the ick about them or I don't know I just I didn't reach for it. So if you have any vloggers you follow especially if you feel like their editing is really good like I feel like Jenna Hong's editing is so unique and so good let me know because I'm wanting to like judge things up on this channel. Hopefully when this video goes up I have like a new like YouTube banner maybe a new little intro things are like rebranded a little bit but I know it's going to be like more of a gradual process for the rebrand. Moving from grad student to professor, moving from Indiana to Miami but yeah just of course the vloggers you watch here just like I can't explain it they're just like really good vloggers they can be full-time influencers I just I don't know. Who are you watching? I do still watch a lot of Kaylynn's Redhead Academics her vlogs and her editing is really good too um but I'm wanting like more people to add to the lineup. That was a really really deep rabbit hole I was just like sat in front of my computer for like two and a half hours I haven't even eaten anything all day I had my coffee and was just like I added so much stuff to an Amazon list with like cameras and mics and I had obviously done a lot of research of like what new camera I want to buy and stuff like that but I feel like I have narrowed it down to some top contenders. I also pulled the trigger and bought just like a cheap mic for this canon g7x until I can get my newer camera because the mic is like really bad on this and I'm so sorry thank you for sticking with me I know that the quality of like audio and video is not great but it's gonna get good soon and then I started messing with adobe express and canva to try and like create a new thumbnail or not thumbnail um like youtube banner and I just got sucked in so here is like sort of what I've ended up with I think that this is gonna be what I go with I like that it's like a subtle nod to UM with like the green and orange but also UF with the blue haha um and it feels like it's still my same like vibe like I do a lot with like the paper cutouts I have like five headshots that I'm working with this is one of them um I thought like doing a little stamp with the oranges before it was cute then slightly different versions is this and then this I think I'm liking this I like the font so I'll eat something let it sit and then see if I make any changes to it I also I'm like what if I just like take out the photo because you know like I already have a photo I'm gonna mess with that a little bit more wait I kind of like this Sarah Fisher just like the little oranges vlogs academic lifestyle Miami because this will be like behind like here's my current youtube banner like really simple but then I'll already have my photo there so like do I really need another photo why are eggs so hard like I really want to cook eggs they're easy fast filling I have bagels that I need to eat but the thought of them I can't do that right now so eggs really it's a day by day kind of thing one day they're great the next day I'm gagging to finish the last bite anyway I split all these ingredients and you couldn't even see them we're gonna have some yogurt some yogurt and I'm kicking myself because I forgot I bought protein waffles I could have eaten instead but granola has protein in it setting up a cozy little workspace a little moody projector moment time to work on all the stuff for my class tomorrow which I planned out just chilling in bed I saw that a new book is ready for me on my libby app and I'm excited because as I mentioned I'm just like bored by the other one so I'm like let me try something new my tummy is hurting a little bit I just feel like really full so I think I'm gonna drink a ginger read my book put something fun on my projector another little music background thing little pumpkin candle has been burning all day smells very good but I'm also wondering if that is contributing to my tummy feeling weird because it's pretty sweet so I might pull that out honestly um and read on my ipad good morning sorry for the rattling of the air conditioning that is just part of this room so the air vent was like screwed on backwards I guess and that's why this is happening so it's probably an easy fix but honestly I like that sound when I'm going to bed it's like a white noise effect anyway today's Thursday we are going to get ready for the day I was gonna wash and redo my hair but honestly it didn't look bad so I was like I'm not gonna go through that work also I think it's supposed to be raining today so I was like there's no point washing and taking the shark to like redo my hair is like a two-hour endeavor quick and easy makeup done here's the fit this mirror's really dirty need to clean that it's fun little brown tank with like buttons on the side it's like ribbed it's thicker it's nice and I have like just this white skirt and some sandals but like I might try on black pants and see how I feel about it I'm just like not crazy about that okay change to some black pants because it is indeed raining and the white skirt just wouldn't work but I'm torn between these pointy flats with like silver buckles or these more like matte slingbacks pointy flat slingback there's no wrong choice it's really not that serious let's go with the slingback it's a lot later I got home from class and I immediately was like I must take a nap I just I must there was no fighting it I don't know why I was so tired I got a lot of sleep last night but so yeah took a little nap and I was like so out of it that my mom was literally knocking on my door I was like Sarah Sarah and she said she knocked three times um yeah I was out of it and I was just like how long would you have like let me sleep before you'd be in to like get concerned about me um so yeah that was funny she's like I don't know I probably would have checked on you at some point I also would have worried you'd never go to sleep tonight and then I ate dinner with my family yapped a bit had some more cake because of course I did and now it's after 10 p.m and I am indeed feeling quite awake so I'm gonna take some melatonin I don't have really a whole lot to do tomorrow I am signed up for an orange theory class once again I'm just in like this limbo state of like should I be doing something like um what's going on and I'm realizing how I'm just so used to like in moments like this I would just like turn to Megan and say like are you doing anything because I'm not really doing anything um but her semester hasn't even started yet so let's watch some more sirens and see if we can even go to bed tonight good morning it's Sunday and I edited the vlog yesterday and I realized that I once again forgot to end it off and I also realized I didn't get a single clip of campus UM is a beautiful campus so I will be getting clips in the future I I think it was so wrapped up in teaching stuff and finding my way around and parking that I didn't even think to get clips so thank you so much for watching if you're not subscribed already I would love if you would subscribe leave a comment I try and respond to all of them send me an email a lot of you all have been adding me on LinkedIn which is really fun add me on LinkedIn uh follow me on Instagram all that good stuff and I will see you guys in the next one