This is probably the last question I'm going to ask for a while. This can also be considered a follow up to this post I made two months ago: Could my visiting instructor position be terminated due to low course reviews? Full time instructor position is not going well at all
Unfortunately, my turnaround time for grading got way worse for reasons both in and out of my control. Starting with the out of control one: I totaled my car the second week of the semester after I spun out on the icy roads. My parents were going to gift me and my brothers cars about a month or so from now (and I got the car sooner than expected for that reason). I sadly had to drive back to my hometown to get it and I lost an extended weekend thanks to that. For the in control one: I was extremely depressed and spiraling still. I ended up in partial hospitalization for a week and a half as a result. Fortunately, I was able to get online asynchronous classes for the time I was in the program up and running officially.
I'm writing this while taking a break from grading as we speak. I plan on getting caught up tonight as this SLAC wants mid term grades before winter break starts.
Faculty have also started to notice, I think (or at least one has). I remember this faculty asking me last semester if I was "going to make it through the term." Later today, when we met, he asked me, "Surviving?" I replied, "yeah." He said that I've been going through a lot. To be clear, he knows about my car getting totaled, but doesn't know about the hospitalization (I told a white lie that I was taken off a program for cognitive rehabilitation to the department chair).
I'm posting here because I'm not confident that I can get a strong and positive letter of recommendation from anyone here. I haven't had anyone watch me in the classroom since I've been afraid of getting low observation scores (again, similar to when I got low scores as an adjunct). Does that pose any problems for future career prospects?
I've recently applied to federal jobs, am going through vocational rehabilitation so they can help me find a job and allow them to apply to jobs for me (I'm neurodivergent), and voluntarily applying for other positions where I'm confident I could work to support myself.
