Partly figured

I may have part of my distress, general unhappiness, sense of burnout figured.

It's the $*&% new book for one of the courses I teach. This is what is called a "service course." Those of you in academia will know what I mean: basically, it's unrewarding. You don't tend to get very good evals for it because most people taking it are resistant to the topic (it's a non-majors course).

HOWEVER, if you go in with the right attitude, you can make it fun. Which was what I used to be able to do.

And now, now my school has decided it's a good idea to standardize all the "service" courses. To the point where all of us who teach this have a standardized syllabus, we are in lockstep on what we can teach and what we have to dump for lack of time.

And the new book. Oy. It's an "issues approach" book, which I hate with a flaming passion. Because every "issue" has the underlying "You all realize of course that we are all screwed" attitude.

Food and diet: "ZOMG Americans are Teh Fatz and No ONE knows how to eat RIGHT!!11!!"
Biotechnology: "Schmaybe it could help us but every silver lining has a cloud."
Population Growth: "We will soon be drowning in people and we'll run out of food! Run around and scream now!"

(Never mind that in an earlier chapter it was being claimed that people worldwide were getting fatter because of Too Much Food).

And you know? I hate this. I'm basically an optimistic person but this book is really getting to me. I don't like feeling like I have to do constant Scale Back On The Fear gut-checks with my students. I don't like the book's tone. I don't like how it seems to have sucked away everything fun and wonderful about the topic and replaced it with reasons why we should all feel very guilty for being alive, and extra guilty if we are Americans.

And I have no $#()# say in choosing the book. It's done by committee, and frankly, the vote was at a time when I didn't have time to properly vet both choices. (And neither one was very good).

So what used to be a fun, free-wheeling class has become a pain. I didn't realize how badly that would affect me, but it does.